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THE    CALL    OF   THE    WILD 


•Thgy^o. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2012  with  funding  from 
Duke  University  Libraries 


http://archive.org/details/callofwild02lond 


"  And  beyond  that  fire  .  .  .  Buck  could  see  many  gleaming, 
coals,  two  by  two,  always  two  by  two." 

See  page  114. 


Illustrated  by  PHILIP  R,.  GOODWIN 
and  CHARLES  LIVINGSTON  BULL 


THE  CALL 
OF  THE  WILD 


New  York 
THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 


1903 

Atl  rights  reserved 


Decorated   by    CHAS.  EDW!   HOOPERj 


Set  up,  electrotyped,  and  published  July,  1903. 


NortoaotJ  $ress 

J.  8.  Cuahing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter 

I.     Into  the  Primitive 

II.  The  Law  of  Club  and  Fang    . 

III.  The  Dominant  Primordial  Beast 

IV.  Who  has  won  to  Mastership  . 
V.  The  Toil  of  Trace  and  Trail 

VI.     For  the  Love  of  a  Man 
VII.     The  Sounding  of  the  Call 


Page 
*3 

4« 

65 

IOI 
121 

»S9 
191 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

And  beyond  that  fire  .  .  .  Buck  could  see  many 
gleaming  coals,  two  by  two,  always  two  by 
two  "  .  .  .  .  .   Frontispiece 


"  Over  this  great  demesne  " 

"  Straight  at  the  man  he  launched  his  one  hundred 
and  forty  pounds  of  fury" 

Perrault     .  . 

"  Glaciers  and  snowdrifts  "  . 

Francois    ....... 

"Wild  waters  defied  the  frost"     . 

"With  the  aurora  borealis  flaming  coldly  overhead" 

"  It  was  to  the  death  "         .... 

"  It  snowed  every  day  "       .... 

"Running  water"      .  .         . 

ii 


Page 


29 

35 
42 

53 
66 

85 

95 

102 

122 


12  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Hal 127 

"John  Thornton  and  Buck  looked  at  each  other"      .      155 

"  By  the  river  bank "  .  .  .  .  .160 

"  Behind  him  were  the  shades  of  all  manner  of  dogs"      169 

"  A  full  moon  rose  "  ......      192 

"  Lying  down  when  the  moose  stood  still  "      .  .215 

"  In  the  summers  there  is  one  visitor  ...  to  that 

valley,  ...  a  great,  gloriously  coated  wolf"   .      229 


INTO   THE   PRIMITIVE 


ifl  in  fffl'im*imifmi!  ffj 


x    OVER.  THIS  GREAT  Dl 

Ate* 


&& 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 


■'■:x' 


C?~ 


I 


Into  the  Primitive 

Old  longings  nomadic  leap, 
Chafing  at  custom's  chain  ; 

Again  from  its  brumal  sleep 
Wakens  the  ferine  strain." 


BUCK  did  not  read  the  newspapers,  or 
k  he  would  have  known  that  trouble 
'  was-  brewing,  not  alone  for  himself, 
but  for  every  tide- water  dog,  strong  of  muscle 
and  with  warm,  long  hair,  from  Puget  Sound 
to  San  Diego.  Because  men,  groping  in  the 
Arctic  darkness,  had  found  a  yellow  metal,  and 
because  steamship  and  transportation  companies 

*5 


1 6         THE   CALL    OF   THE   WILD 

were  booming  the  find,  thousands  of  men  were 
rushing  into  the  Northland.  These  men 
wanted  dogs,  and  the  dogs  they  wanted  were 
heavy  dogs,  with  strong  muscles  by  which  to 
toil,  and  furry  coats  to  protect  them  from  the 
frost. 

Buck  lived  at  a  big  house  in  the  sun- 
kissed  Santa  Clara  Valley.  Judge  Miller's 
place,  it  was  called.  It  stood  back  from  the 
road,  half  hidden  among  the  trees,  through 
which  glimpses  could  be  caught  of  the  wide 
cool  veranda  that  ran  around  its  four  sides. 
The  house  was  approached  by  gravelled  drive- 
ways which  wound  about  through  wide-spread- 
ing lawns  and  under  the  interlacing  boughs 
of  tall  poplars.  At  the  rear  things  were  on 
even  a  more  spacious  scale  than  at  the  front. 
There  were  great  stables,  where  a  dozen 
grooms  and  boys  held  forth,  rows  of  vine- 
clad  servants'  cottages,  an  endless  and  orderly 
array  of  outhouses,  long  grape  arbors,  green 
pastures,  orchards,  and  berry  patches.  Then 
there  was  the  pumping  plant  for  the  artesian 
well,  and  the  big  cement   tank  where   Judge 


INTO   THE   PRIMITIVE  17 

Miller's  boys  took  their  morning  plunge  and 
kept  cool  in  the  hot  afternoon. 

And  over  this  great  demesne  Buck  ruled. 
Here  he  was  born,  and  here  he  had  lived  the 
four  years  of  his  life.  It  was  true,  there  were 
other  dogs.  There  could  not  but  be  other 
dogs  on  so  vast  a  place,  but  they  did  not 
count.  They  came  and  went,  resided  in  the 
populous  kennels,  or  lived  obscurely  in  the 
recesses  of  the  house  after  the  fashion  of 
Toots,  the  Japanese  pug,  or  Ysabel,  the 
Mexican  hairless,  ^strange  creatures  that  rarely 
put  nose  out  of  doors  or  set  foot  to  ground. 
On  the  other  hand,-  there  were  the  fox  terriers, 
a  score  of  them  at  least,  who  yelped  fearful 
promises  at  Toots  and  Ysabel  looking  out  of 
the  windows  at  them  and  protected  by  a 
legion  of  housemaids  armed  with  brooms  and 
mops. 

But  Buck  was  neither  house-dog  nor  kennel- 
dog.  The  whole  realm  was  his.  He  plunged 
into  the  swimming  tank  or  went  hunting 
with  the  Judge's  sons ;  he  escorted  Mollie 
and  Alice,  the  Judge's  daughters,  on  long  twi- 


1 8  THE   CALL   OF  THE   WILD 

light  or  early  morning  rambles ;  on  wintry  nights 
he  lay  at  the  Judge's  feet  before  the  roaring 
library  fire ;  he  carried  the  Judge's  grand- 
sons on  his  back,  or  rolled  them  in  the  grass, 
and  guarded  their  footsteps  through  wild  ad- 
ventures down  to  the  fountain  in  the  stable 
yard,  and  even  beyond,  where  the  paddocks 
were,  and  the  berry  patches.  Among  the 
terriers  he  stalked  imperiously,  and  Toots  and 
Ysabel  he  utterly  ignored,  for  he  was  king, — 
king  over  all  creeping,  crawling,  flying  things 
of  Judge  Miller's  place,  humans  included. 

His  father,  Elmo,  a  huge  St.  Bernard,  had 
been  the  Judge's  inseparable  companion,  and 
Buck  bid  fair  to  follow  in  the  way  of  his  father. 
He  was  not  so  large,  —  he  weighed  only  one 
hundred  and  forty  pounds,  —  for  his  mother, 
Shep,  had  been  a  Scotch  shepherd  dog.  Never- 
theless, one  hundred  and  forty  pounds,  to  which 
was  added  the  dignity  that  comes  of  good  living 
and  universal  respect,  enabled  him  to  carry  him- 
self in  right  royal  fashion.  During  the  four 
years  since  his  puppyhood  he  had  lived  the  life 
of  a  sated  aristocrat;  he  had  a  fine  pride  in  him- 


INTO   THE   PRIMITIVE  19 

self,  was  even  a  trifle  egotistical,  as  country 
gentlemen  sometimes  become  because  of  their 
insular  situation.  But  he  had  saved  himself  by 
not  becoming  a  mere  pampered  house-dog. 
Hunting  and  kindred  outdoor  delights  had 
kept  down  the  fat  and  hardened  his  muscles ; 
and  to  him,  as  to  the  cold-tubbing  races,  the 
love  of  water  had  been  a  tonic  and  a  health 
preserver. 

And  this  was  the  manner  of  dog  Buck  was 
in  the  fall  of  1897,  when  the  Klondike  strike 
dragged  men  from  all  the  world  into  the 
frozen  North.  But  Buck  did  not  read  the 
newspapers,  and  he  did  not  know  that  Manuel, 
one  of  the  gardener's  helpers,  was  an  undesir- 
able acquaintance.  Manuel  had  one  besetting 
sin.  He  loved  to  play  Chinese  lottery.  Also, 
in  his  gambling,  he  had  one  besetting  weak- 
ness —  faith  in  a  system ;  and  this  made  his 
damnation  certain.  For  to  play  a  system  re- 
quires money,  while  the  wages  of  a  gardener's 
helper  do  not  lap  over  the  needs  of  a  wife  and 
numerous  progeny. 

The  Judge  was  at  a  meeting  of  the  Raisin 


20  THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

Growers'  Association,  and  the  boys  were  busy 
organizing  an  athletic  club,  on  the  memorable 
night  of  Manuel's  treachery.  No  one  saw  him 
and  Buck  go  off  through  the  orchard  on  what 
Buck  imagined  was  merely  a  stroll.  And  with 
the  exception  of  a  solitary  man,  no  one  saw 
them  arrive  at  the  little  flag  station  known  as 
College  Park.  This  man  talked  with  Manuel, 
and  money  chinked  between  them. 

"  You  might  wrap  up  the  goods  before  you 
deliver  'm,"  the  stranger  said  gruffly,  and 
Manuel  doubled  a  piece  of  stout  rope  around 
Buck's  neck  under  the  collar. 

"  Twist  it,  an'  you'll  choke  'm  plentee," 
said  Manuel,  and  the  stranger  grunted  a  ready 
affirmative. 

Buck  had  accepted  the  rope  with  quiet  dig- 
nity. To  be  sure,  it  was  an  unwonted  perform- 
ance: but  he  had  learned  to  trust  in  men  he 
knew,  and  to  give  them  credit  for  a  wisdom 
that  outreached  his  own.  But  when  the  ends 
of  the  rope  were  placed  in  the  stranger's  hands, 
he  growled  menacingly.  He  had  merely  inti- 
mated  his  displeasure,  in  his  pride  believing 


INTO   THE   PRIMITIVE  21 

that  to  intimate  was  to  command.  But  to  his 
surprise  the  rope  tightened  around  his  neck, 
shutting  off  his  breath.  In  quick  rage  he 
sprang  at  the  man,  who  met  him  halfway, 
grappled  him  close  by  the  throat,  and  with  a 
deft  twist  threw  him  over  on  his  back.  Then 
the  rope  tightened  mercilessly,  while  Buck 
struggled  in  a  fury,  his  tongue  lolling  out  of 
his  mouth  and  his  great  chest  panting  futilely. 
Never  in  all  his  life  had  he  been  so  vilely 
treated,  and  never  in  all  his  life  had  he  been 
so  angry.  But  his  strength  ebbed,  his  eyes 
glazed,  and  he  knew  nothing  when  the  train 
was  flagged  and  the  two  men  threw  him  into 
the  baggage  car. 

The  next  he  knew,  he  was  dimly  aware  that 
his  tongue  was  hurting  and  that  he  was  being 
jolted  along  in  some  kind  of  a  conveyance. 
The  hoarse  shriek  of  a  locomotive  whistling  a 
crossing  told  him  where  he  was.  He  had 
travelled  too  often  with  the  Judge  not  to  know 
the  sensation  of  riding  in  a  baggage  car.  He 
opened  his  eyes,  and  into  them  came  the 
unbridled  anger  of  a  kidnapped   king.      The 


22  THE   CALL   OF  THE   WILD 

man  sprang  for  his  throat,  but  Buck  was  too 
quick  for  him.  His  jaws  closed  on  the  hand, 
nor  did  they  relax  till  his  senses  were  choked 
out  of  him  once  more. 

"Yep,  has  fits,"  the  man  said,  hiding  his 
mangled  hand  from  the  baggageman,  who  had 
been  attracted  by  the  sounds  of  struggle. 
"  I'm  takin'  'm  up  for  the  boss  to  'Frisco. 
A  crack  dog-doctor  there  thinks  that  he  can 
cure  'm." 

Concerning  that  night's  ride,  the  man  spoke 
most  eloquently  for  himself,  in  a  little  shed 
back  of  a  saloon  on  the  San  Francisco  water 
front. 

"All  I  get  is  fifty  for  it,"  he  grumbled; 
"  an'  I  wouldn't  do  it  over  for  a  thousand, 
cold  cash." 

His  hand  was  wrapped  in  a  bloody  hand- 
kerchief, and  the  right  trouser  leg  was  ripped 
from  knee  to  ankle. 

"  How  much  did  the  other  mug  get  ? "  the 
saloon-keeper  demanded. 

"  A  hundred,"  was  the  reply.  "  Wouldn't 
take  a  sou  less,  so  help  me." 


INTO   THE   PRIMITIVE  23 

"That  makes  a  hundred  and  fifty,"  the 
saloon-keeper  calculated ;  "  and  he's  worth  it, 
or  I'm  a  squarehead." 

The  kidnapper  undid  the  bloody  wrappings 
and  looked  at  his  lacerated  hand.  "  If  I  don't 
get  the  hydrophoby  —  " 

"  It'll  be  because  you  was  born  to  hang," 
laughed  the  saloon-keeper.  "  Here,  lend  me  a 
hand  before  you  pull  your  freight,"  he  added. 

Dazed,  suffering  intolerable  pain  from 
throat  and  tongue,  with  the  life  half  throttled 
out  of  him,  Buck  attempted  to  face  his  tor- 
mentors. But  he  was  thrown  down  and 
choked  repeatedly,  till  they  succeeded  in  filing 
the  heavy  brass  collar  from  off  his  neck. 
Then  the  rope  was  removed,  and  he  was  flung 
into  a  cagelike  crate. 

There  he  lay  for  the  remainder  of  the  weary 
night,  nursing  his  wrath  and  wounded  pride.  He 
could  not  understand  what  it  all  meant.  What 
did  they  want  with  him,  these  strange  men  ? 
Why  were  they  keeping  him  pent  up  in  this 
narrow  crate?  He  did  not  know  why,  but 
he   felt  oppressed  by  the  vague  sense  of  im- 


24  THE   CALL   OF  THE  WILD 

pending  calamity.  Several  times  during  the 
night  he  sprang  to  his  feet  when  the  shed  door 
rattled  open,  expecting  to  see  the  Judge,  or  the 
boys  at  least.  But  each  time  it  was  the  bulg- 
ing face  of  the  saloon-keeper  that  peered  in 
at  him  by  the  sickly  light  of  a  tallow  candle. 
And  each  time  the  joyful  bark  that  trembled 
in  Buck's  throat  was  twisted  into  a  savage 
growl. 

But  the  saloon-keeper  let  him  alone,  and  in 
the  morning  four  men  entered  and  picked  up 
the  crate.  More  tormentors,  Buck  decided, 
for  they  were  evil-looking  creatures,  ragged 
and  unkempt;  and  he  stormed  and  raged  at 
them  through  the  bars.  !,They  only  laughed 
and  poked  sticks  at  him,  which  he  promptly 
assailed  with  his  teeth  till  he  realized  that  that 
was  what  they  wanted.  Whereupon  he  lay 
down  sullenly  and  allowed  the  crate  to  be 
lifted  into  a  wagon.  Then  he,  and  the  crate 
in  which  he  was  imprisoned,  began  a  passage 
through  many  hands.  Clerks  in  the  express 
office  took  charge  of  him ;  he  was  carted  about 
in  another  wagon  ;  a  truck  carried  him,  with  an 


INTO   THE   PRIMITIVE  25 

assortment  of  boxes  and  parcels,  upon  a  ferry 
steamer;  he  was  trucked  off  the  steamer  into 
a  great  railway  depot,  and  finally  he  was  de- 
posited in  an  express  car. 

For  two  days  and  nights  this  express  car 
was  dragged  along  at  the  tail  of  shrieking  loco- 
motives ;  and  for  two  days  and  nights  Buck 
neither  ate  nor  drank.  In  his  anger  he  had 
met  the  first  advances  of  the  express  mes- 
sengers with  growls,  and  they  had  retaliated  by 
teasing  him.  When  he  flung  himself  against 
the  bars,  quivering  and  frothing,  they  laughed 
at  him  and  taunted  him.  They  growled  and 
barked  like  detestable  dogs,  mewed,  and 
flapped  their  arms  and  crowed.  It  was  all 
very  silly,  he  knew  ;  but  therefore  the  more 
outrage  to  his  dignity,  and  his  anger  waxed 
and  waxed.  He  did  not  mind  the  hunger  so 
much,  but  the  lack  of  water  caused  him  severe 
suffering  and  fanned  his  wrath  to  fever-pitch. 
For  that  matter,  high-strung  and  finely  sensi- 
tive, the  ill  treatment  had  flung  him  into  a 
fever,  which  was  fed  by  the  inflammation  of  his 
parched  and  swollen  throat  and  tongue. 


26  THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

He  was  glad  for  one  thing :  the  rope  was 
off  his  neck.  That  had  given  them  an  unfair 
advantage ;  but  now  that  it  was  off,  he  would 
show  them.  They  would  never  get  another 
rope  around  his  neck.  Upon  that  he  was 
resolved.  For  two  days  and  nights  he  neither 
ate  nor  drank,  and  during  those  two  days  and 
nights  of  torment,  he  accumulated  a  fund  of 
wrath  that  boded  ill  for  whoever  first  fell  foul 
of  him.  His  eyes  turned  blood-shot,  and  he 
was  metamorphosed  into  a  raging  fiend.  So 
changed  was  he  that  the  Judge  himself  would 
not  have  recognized  him ;  and  the  express 
messengers  breathed  with  relief  when  they 
bundled  him  off  the  train  at  Seattle. 

Four  men  gingerly  carried  the  crate  from 
the  wagon  into  a  small,  high-walled  back  yard. 
A  stout  man,  with  a  red  sweater  that  sagged 
generously  at  the  neck,  came  out  and  signed 
the  book  for  the  driver.  That  was  the  man, 
Buck  divined,  the  next  tormentor,  and  he 
hurled  himself  savagely  against  the  bars.  The 
man  smiled  grimly,  and  brought  a  hatchet  and 
a  club. 


INTO   THE   PRIMITIVE  27 

"  You  ain't  going  to  take  him  out  now  ? " 
the  driver  asked. 

"  Sure,"  the  man  replied,  driving  the  hatchet 
into  the  crate  for  a  pry. 

There  was  an  instantaneous  scattering  of 
the  four  men  who  had  carried  it  in,  and  from 
safe  perches  on  top  the  wall  they  prepared  to 
watch  the  performance. 

Buck  rushed  at  the  splintering  wood,  sink- 
ing his  teeth  into  it,  surging  and  wrestling 
with  it.  Wherever  the  hatchet  fell  on  the  out- 
side, he  was  there  on  the  inside,  snarling  and 
growling,  as  furiously  anxious  to  get  out  as  the 
man  in  the  red  sweater  was  calmly  intent  on 
getting  him  out. 

"  Now,  you  red-eyed  devil,"  he  said,  when 
he  had  made  an  opening  sufficient  for  the  pas- 
sage of  Buck's  body.  At  the  same  time  he 
dropped  the  hatchet  and  shifted  the  club  to 
his  right  hand. 

And  Buck  was  truly  a  red-eyed  devil,  as  he 
drew  himself  together  for  the  spring,  hair  bris- 
tling, mouth  foaming,  a  mad  glitter  in  his  blood- 
shot  eyes.     Straight  at  the  man  he  launched 


28  THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

his  one  hundred  and  forty  pounds  of  fury,  sur- 
charged with  the  pent  passion  of  two  days  and 
nights.  In  mid  air,  just  as  his  jaws  were  about 
to  close  on  the  man,  he  received  a  shock  that 
checked  his  body  and  brought  his  teeth  together 
with  an  agonizing  clip.  He  whirled  over,  fetch- 
ing the  ground  on  his  back  and  side.  He  had 
never  been  struck  by  a  club  in  his  life,  and  did 
not  understand.  With  a  snarl  that  was  part 
bark  and  more  scream  he  was  again  on  his  feet 
and  launched  into  the  air.  And  again  the 
shock  came  and  he  was  brought  crushingly  to 
the  ground.  This  time  he  was  aware  that  it 
was  the  club,  but  his  madness  knew  no  caution. 
A  dozen  times  he  charged,  and  as  often  the 
club  broke  the  charge  and  smashed  him  down. 
After  a  particularly  fierce  blow,  he  crawled 
to  his  feet,  too  dazed  to  rush.  He  staggered 
limply  about,  the  blood  flowing  from  nose  and 
mouth  and  ears,  his  beautiful  coat  sprayed  and 
flecked  with  bloody  slaver.  Then  the  man  ad- 
vanced and  deliberately  dealt  him  a  frightful 
blow  on  the  nose.  All  the  pain  he  had  endured 
was  as  nothing   compared  with    the   exquisite 


■  Straight  at  the  man  he  launched  his  one  hundred  and  forty- 
pounds  of  fury." 


INTO   THE   PRIMITIVE  31 

agony  of  this.  With  a  roar  that  was  almost 
lionlike  in  its  ferocity,  he  again  hurled  himself 
at  the  man.  But  the  man,  shifting  the  club 
from  right  to  left,  coolly  caught  him  by  the 
under  jaw,  at  the  same  time  wrenching  down- 
ward and  backward.  Buck  described  a  com- 
plete circle  in  the  air,  and  half  of  another,  then 
crashed  to  the  ground  on  his  head  and  chest. 

For  the  last  time  he  rushed.  The  man 
struck  the  shrewd  blow  he  had  purposely  with- 
held for  so  long,  and  Buck  crumpled  up  and 
went  down,  knocked  utterly  senseless. 

"  He's  no  slouch  at  dog-breakin',  that's  wot 
I  say,"  one  of  the  men  on  the  wall  cried 
enthusiastically. 

"  Druther  break  cayuses  any  day,  and  twice 
on  Sundays,"  was  the  reply  of  the  driver,  as  he 
climbed  on  the  wagon  and  started  the  horses. 

Buck's  senses  came  back  to  him,  but  not  his 
strength.  He  lay  where  he  had  fallen,  and 
from  there  he  watched  the  man  in  the  red 
sweater. 

" c  Answers  to  the  name  of  Buck,'  "  the  man 
soliloquized,  quoting  from  the  saloon-keeper's 


32         THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

letter  which  had  announced  the  consignment 
of  the  crate  and  contents.  "  Well,  Buck,  my 
boy,"  he  went  on  in  a  genial  voice,  "  we've  had 
our  little  ruction,  and  the  best  thing  we  can  do 
is  to  let  it  go  at  that.  You've  learned  your 
place,  and  I  know  mine.  Be  a  good  dog  and 
all  '11  go  well  and  the  goose  hang  high.  Be  a 
bad  dog,  and  I'll  whale  the  stuffin'  outa  you. 
Understand  ? " 

As  he  spoke  he  fearlessly  patted  the  head  he 
had  so  mercilessly  pounded,  and  though  Buck's 
hair  involuntarily  bristled  at  touch  of  the  hand, 
he  endured  it  without  protest.  When  the  man 
brought  him  water  he  drank  eagerly,  and  later 
bolted  a  generous  meal  of  raw  meat,  chunk  by 
chunk,  from  the  man's  hand. 

He  was  beaten  (he  knew  that) ;  but  he  was 
not  broken.  He  saw,  once  for  all,  that  he 
stood  no  chance  against  a  man  with  a  club. 
He  had  learned  the  lesson,  and  in  all  his  after 
life  he  never  forgot  it.  That  club  was  a  reve- 
lation. It  was  his  introduction  to  the  reign  of 
primitive  law,  and  he  met  the  introduction  half- 
way.   The  facts  of  life  took  on  a  fiercer  aspect ; 


INTO   THE    PRIMITIVE  33 

and  while  he  faced  that  aspect  uncowed,  he 
faced  it  with  all  the  latent  cunning  of  his  nature 
aroused.  As  the  days  went  by,  other  dogs 
came,  in  crates  and  at  the  ends  of  ropes,  some 
docilely,  and  some  raging  and  roaring  as  he  had 
come ;  and,  one  and  all,  he  watched  them  pass 
under  the  dominion  of  the  man  in  the  red 
sweater.  Again  and  again,  as  he  looked  at  each 
brutal  performance,  the  lesson  was  driven  home 
to  Buck :  a  man  with  a  club  was  a  lawgiver,  a 
master  to  be  obeyed,  though  not  necessarily 
conciliated.  Of  this  last  Buck  was  never  guilty, 
though  he  did  see  beaten  dogs  that  fawned 
upon  the  man,  and  wagged  their  tails,  and 
licked  his  hand.  Also  he  saw  one  dog,  that 
would  neither  conciliate  nor  obey,  finally  killed 
in  the  struggle  for  mastery. 

Now  and  again  men  came,  strangers,  who 
talked  excitedly,  wheedlingly,  and  in  all  kinds 
of  fashions  to  the  man  in  the  red  sweater.  And 
at  such  times  that  money  passed  between  them 
the  strangers  took  one  or  more  of  the  dogs 
away  with  them.  Buck  wondered  where  they 
went,  for  they  never  came  back;  but  the  fear 


34  THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

of  the  future  was  strong  upon  him,  and  he  was 
glad  each  time  when  he  was  not  selected. 

Yet  his  time  came,  in  the  end,  in  the  form 
of  a  little  weazened  man  who  spat  broken 
English  and  many  strange  and  uncouth  excla- 
mations which  Buck  could  not  understand. 

"  Sacredam ! "  he  cried,  when  his  eyes  lit 
upon  Buck.  "  Dat  one  dam  bully  dog !  Eh  ? 
How  moch  ? " 

"Three  hundred,  and  a  present  at  that," 
was  the  prompt  reply  of  the  man  in  the  red 
sweater.  "  And  seem'  it's  government  money, 
you  ain't  got  no  kick  coming,  eh,  Perrault  ? " 

Perrault  grinned.  Considering  that  the  price 
of  dogs  had  been  boomed  skyward  by  the  un- 
wonted demand,  it  was  not  an  unfair  sum  for 
so  fine  an  animal.  The  Canadian  Government 
would  be  no  loser,  nor  would  its  despatches 
travel  the  slower.  Perrault  knew  dogs,  and 
when  he  looked  at  Buck  he  knew  that  he 
was  one  in  a  thousand  —  "  One  in  ten 
t'ousand,"  he  commented  mentally. 

Buck  saw  money  pass  between  them,  and 
was  not  surprised  when  Curly,  a  good-natured 


PERRAULT. 


INTO   THE    PRIMITIVE  37 

Newfoundland,  and  he  were  led  away  by  the 
little  weazened  man.  That  was  the  last  he  saw 
of  the  man  in  the  red  sweater,  and  as  Curly 
and  he  looked  at  receding  Seattle  from  the 
deck  of  the  Narwhal,  it  was  the  last  he  saw  of 
the  warm  Southland.  Curly  and  he  were  taken 
below  by  Perrault  and  turned  over  to  a  black- 
faced  giant  called  Francois.  Perrault  was  a 
French-Canadian,  and  swarthy ;  but  Francois 
was  a  French-Canadian  half-breed,  and  twice  as 
swarthy.  They  were  a  new  kind  of  men  to 
Buck  (of  which  he  was  destined  to  see  many 
more),  and  while  he  developed  no  affection  for 
them,  he  none  the .  less  grew  honestly  to  re- 
spect them.  He  speedily  learned  that  Perrault 
and  Francois  were  fair  men,  calm  and  impartial 
in  administering  justice,  and  too  wise  in  the  way 
of  dogs  to  be  fooled  by  dogs. 

In  the  'tween-decks  of  the  Narwhal,  Buck 
and  Curly  joined  two  other  dogs.  One  of 
them  was  a  big,  snow-white  fellow  from  Spits- 
bergen who  had  been  brought  away  by  a 
whaling  captain,  and  who  had  later  accom- 
panied a  Geological  Survey  into  the  Barrens. 


38         THE   CALL   OF  THE  WILD 

He  was  friendly,  in  a  treacherous  sort  of  way, 
smiling  into  one's  face  the  while  he  meditated 
some  underhand  trick,  as,  for  instance,  when 
he  stole  from  Buck's  food  at  the  first  meal. 
As  Buck  sprang  to  punish  him,  the  lash  of 
Francois's  whip  sang  through  the  air,  reaching 
the  culprit  first ;  and  nothing  remained  to 
Buck  but  to  recover  the  bone.  That  was 
fair  of  Francois,  he  decided,  and  the  half- 
breed  began  his  rise  in  Buck's  estimation. 

The  other  dog  made  no  advances,  nor  re- 
ceived any ;  also,  he  did  not  attempt  to  steal 
from  the  newcomers.  He  was  a  gloomy, 
morose  fellow,  and  he  showed  Curly  plainly 
that  all  he  desired  was  to  be  left  alone,  and 
further,  that  there  would  be  trouble  if  he 
were  not  left  alone.  "  Dave  "  he  was  called, 
and  he  ate  and  slept,  or  yawned  between 
times,  and  took  interest  in  nothing,  not  even 
when  the  Narwhal  crossed  Queen  Charlotte 
Sound  and  rolled  and  pitched  and  bucked 
like  a  thing  possessed.  When  Buck  and 
Curly  grew  excited,  half  wild  with  fear,  he 
raised  his   head   as   though   annoyed,  favored 


INTO   THE   PRIMITIVE  39 

them  with  an  incurious   glance,  yawned,  and 
went  to  sleep  again. 

Day  and  night  the  ship  throbbed  to  the 
tireless  pulse  of  the  propeller,  and  though 
one  day  was  very  like  another,  it  was  appar- 
ent to  Buck  that  the  weather  was  steadily 
growing  colder.  At  last,  one  morning,  the 
propeller  was  quiet,  and  the  Narwhal  was 
pervaded  with  an  atmosphere  of  excitement. 
He  felt  it,  as  did  the  other  dogs,  and  knew 
that  a  change  was  at  hand.  Francois  leashed 
them  and  brought  them  on  deck.  At  the 
first  step  upon  the  cold  surface,  Buck's  feet 
sank  into  a  white  mushy  something  very  like 
mud.  He  sprang  back  with  a  snort.  More 
of  this  white  stuff  was  falling  through  the 
air.  He  shook  himself,  but  more  of  it  fell 
upon  him.  He  sniffed  it  curiously,  then 
licked  some  up  on  his  tongue.  It  bit  like 
fire,  and  the  next  instant  was  gone.  This 
puzzled  him.  He  tried  it  again,  with  the 
same  result.  The  onlookers  laughed  up- 
roariously, and  he  felt  ashamed,  he  knew 
not   why,   for   it   was  his  first  snow. 


II 

THE   LAW   OF   CLUB   AND   FANG 


The  Law  of 
Club  and  Fang 


BUCK'S  first  day  on  the  Dyea  beach 
was  like  a  nightmare.  Every  hour 
was  filled  with  shock  and  surprise. 
He  had  been  suddenly  jerked  from  the  heart 
of  civilization  and  flung  into  the  heart  of 
things  primordial.  No  lazy,  sun-kissed  life 
was  this,  with  nothing  to  do  but  loaf  and  be 
bored.  Here  was  neither  peace,  nor  rest, 
nor  a  moment's  safety.  All  was  confusion 
and  action,  and  every  moment  life  and  limb 
were  in  peril.  There  was  imperative  need 
to  be  constantly  alert ;  for  these  dogs  and 
men  were  not  town  dogs  and  men.  They 
were  savages,  all  of  them,  who  knew  no  law 
but  the  law  of  club  and  fang. 

43 


44  THE    CALL    OF    THE   WILD 

He  had  never  seen  dogs  fight  as  these 
wolfish  creatures  fought,  and  his  first  experi- 
ence taught  him  an  unforgetable  lesson.  It 
is  true,  it  was  a  vicarious  experience,  else 
he  would  not  have  lived  to  profit  by  it. 
Curly  was  the  victim.  They  were  camped 
near  the  log  store,  where  she,  in  her  friendly 
way,  made  advances  to  a  husky  dog  the  size 
of  a  full-grown  wolf,  though  not  half  so  large 
as  she.  There  was  no  warning,  only  a  leap 
in  like  a  flash,  a  metallic  clip  of  teeth,  a  leap 
out  equally  swift,  and  Curly's  face  was  ripped 
open  from  eye  to  jaw. 

It  was  the  wolf  manner  of  fighting,  to 
strike  and  leap  away ;  but  there  was  more 
to  it  than  this.  Thirty  or  forty  huskies  ran 
to  the  spot  and  surrounded  the  combatants 
in  an  intent  and  silent  circle.  Buck  did  not 
comprehend  that  silent  intentness,  nor  the 
eager  way  with  which  they  were  licking 
their  chops.  Curly  rushed  her  antagonist, 
who  struck  again  and  leaped  aside.  He  met 
her  next  rush  with  his  chest,  in  a  peculiar 
fashion   that   tumbled   her   off  her  feet.     She 


THE   LAW   OF   CLUB   AND    FANG     45 

never  regained  them.  This  was  what  the  on- 
looking  huskies  had  waited  for.  They  closed 
in  upon  her,  snarling  and  yelping,  and  she 
was  buried,  screaming  with  agony,  beneath 
the  bristling  mass  of  bodies. 

So  sudden  was  it,  and  so  unexpected,  that 
Buck  was  taken  aback.  He  saw  Spitz  run 
out  his  scarlet  tongue  in  a  way  he  had  of 
laughing;  and  he  saw  Francois,  swinging  an 
axe,  spring  into  the  mess  of  dogs.  Three 
men  with  clubs  were  helping  him  to  scatter 
them.  It  did  not  take  long.  Two  minutes 
from  the  time  Curly  went  down,  the  last  of 
her  assailants  were  clubbed  off.  But  she  lay 
there  limp  and  lifeless  in  the  bloody,  trampled 
snow,  almost  literally  torn  to  pieces,  the  swart 
half-breed  standing  over  her  and  cursing  hor- 
ribly. The  scene  often  came  back  to  Buck  to 
trouble  him  in  his  sleep.  So  that  was  the  way. 
No  fair  play.  Once  down,  that  was  the  end 
of  you.  Well,  he  would  see  to  it  that  he  never 
went  down.  Spitz  ran  out  his  tongue  and 
laughed  again,  and  from  that  moment  Buck 
hated  him  with  a  bitter  and  deathless  hatred. 


46  THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

Before  he  had  recovered  from  the  shock 
caused  by  the  tragic  passing  of  Curly,  he 
received  another  shock.  Francois  fastened 
upon  him  an  arrangement  of  straps  and 
buckles.  It  was  a  harness,  such  as  he  had 
seen  the  grooms  put  on  the  horses  at  home. 
And  as  he  had  seen  horses  work,  so.  he  was 
set  to  work,  hauling  Francois  on  a  sled  to 
the  forest  that  fringed  the  valley,  and  return- 
ing with  a  load  of  firewood.  Though  his 
dignity  was  sorely  hurt  by  thus  being  made 
a  draught  animal,  he  was  too  wise  to  rebel. 
He  buckled  down  with  a  will  and  did  his 
best,  though  it  was  all  new  and  strange. 
Francois  was  stern,  demanding  instant  obe- 
dience, and  by  virtue  of  his  whip  receiving 
instant  obedience ;  while  Dave,  who  was  an 
experienced  wheeler,  nipped  Buck's  hind  quar- 
ters whenever  he  was  in  error.  Spitz  was 
the  leader,  likewise  experienced,  and  while 
he  could  not  always  get  at  Buck,  he  growled 
sharp  reproof  now  and  again,  or  cunningly 
threw  his  weight  in  the  traces  to  jerk  Buck 
into    the   way    he   should  go.     Buck   learned 


THE   LAW   OF   CLUB   AND   FANG     47 

easily,  and  under  the  combined  tuition  of  his 
two  mates  and  Francois  made  remarkable 
progress.  Ere  they  returned  to  camp  he 
knew  enough  to  stop  at  "ho,"  to  go  ahead 
at  "  mush,"  to  swing  wide  on  the  bends, 
and  to  keep  clear  of  the  wheeler  when  the 
loaded  sled  shot  downhill  at  their  heels. 

"  T'ree  vair'  good  dogs,"  Francois  told 
Perrault.  "  Dat  Buck,  heem  pool  lak  hell. 
I  tich  heem  queek  as  anyt'ing." 

By  afternoon,  Perrault,  who  was  in  a  hurry 
to  be  on  the  trail  with  his  despatches,  returned 
with  two  more  dogs.  "Billee"and  "Joe" 
he  called  them,  two  brothers,  and  true  huskies 
both.  Sons  of  the  one  mother  though  they 
were,  they  were  as  different  as  day  and  night. 
Billee's  one  fault  was  his  excessive  good 
nature,  while  Joe  was  the  very  opposite, 
sour  and  introspective,  with  a  perpetual  snarl 
and  a  malignant  eye.  Buck  received  them 
in  comradely  fashion,  Dave  ignored  them, 
while  Spitz  proceeded  to  thrash  first  one  and 
then  the  other.  Billee  wagged  his  tail  appeas- 
ingly,  turned  to  run  when  he   saw   that  ap- 


48  THE    CALL   OF   THE  WILD 

peasement  was  of  no  avail,  and  cried  (still 
appeasingly)  when  Spitz's  sharp  teeth  scored 
his  flank.  But  no  matter  how  Spitz  circled, 
Joe  whirled  around  on  his  heels  to  face  him, 
mane  bristling,  ears  laid  back,  lips  writhing 
and  snarling,  jaws  clipping  together  as  fast  as 
he  could  snap,  and  eyes  diabolically  gleaming 
—  the  incarnation  of  belligerent  fear.  So 
terrible  was  his  appearance  that  Spitz  was 
forced  to  forego  disciplining  him ;  but  to 
cover  his  own  discomfiture  he  turned  upon 
the  inoffensive  and  wailing  Billee  and  drove 
him  to  the  confines  of  the  camp. 

By  evening  Perrault  secured  another  dog, 
an  old  husky,  long  and  lean  and  gaunt,  with 
a  battle-scarred  face  and  a  single  eye  which 
flashed  a  warning  of  prowess  that  commanded 
respect.  He  was  called  Sol-leks,  which  means 
the  Angry  One.  Like  Dave,  he  asked 
nothing,  gave  nothing,  expected  nothing;  and 
when  he  marched  slowly  and  deliberately  into 
their  midst,  even  Spitz  left  him  alone.  He 
had  one  peculiarity  which  Buck  was  unlucky 
enough  to  discover.     He  did  not  like  to  be 


THE   LAW   OF   CLUB   AND   FANG     49 

approached  on  his  blind  side.  Of  this  offence 
Buck  was  unwittingly  guilty,  and  the  first 
knowledge  he  had  of  his  indiscretion  was 
when  Sol-leks  whirled  upon  him  and  slashed 
his  shoulder  to  the  bone  for  three  inches  up 
and  down.  Forever  after  Buck  avoided  his 
blind  side,  and  to  the  last  of  their  comradeship 
had  no  more  trouble.  His  only  apparent 
ambition,  like  Dave's,  was  to  be  left  alone ; 
though,  as  Buck  was  afterward  to  learn,  each 
of  them  possessed  one  other  and  even  more 
vital  ambition. 

That  night  Buck  faced  the  great  problem  of 
sleeping.  The  tent,  illumined  by  a  candle, 
glowed  warmly  in  the  midst  of  the  white 
plain;  and  when  he,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
entered  it,  both  Perrault  and  Francois  bom- 
barded him  with  curses  and  cooking  utensils, 
till  he  recovered  from  his  consternation  and 
fled  ignominiously  into  the  outer  cold.  A 
chill  wind  was  blowing  that  nipped  him  sharply 
and  bit  with  especial  venom  into  his  wounded 
shoulder.  He  lay  down  on  the  snow  and 
attempted  to  sleep,  but  the  frost  soon  drove 


50         THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

him  shivering  to  his  feet.  Miserable  and 
disconsolate,  he  wandered  about  among  the 
many  tents,  only  to  find  that  one  place  was 
as  cold  as  another.  Here  and  there  savage 
dogs  rushed  upon  him,  but  he  bristled  his 
neck-hair  and  snarled  (for  he  was  learning 
fast),  and  they  let  him  go  his  way  unmolested. 
Finally  an  idea  came  to  him.  He  would 
return  and  see  how  his  own  team-mates  were 
making  out.  To  his  astonishment,  they  had 
disappeared.  Again  he  wandered  about  through 
the  great  camp,  looking  for  them,  and  again  he 
returned.  Were  they  in  the  tent  ?  No,  that 
could  not  be,  else  he  would  not  have  been 
driven  out.  Then  where  could  they  possibly 
be?  With  drooping  tail  and  shivering  body, 
very  forlorn  indeed,  he  aimlessly  circled  the 
tent.  Suddenly  the  snow  gave  way  beneath 
his  fore  legs  and  he  sank  down.  Something 
wriggled  under  his  feet.  He  sprang  back, 
bristling  and  snarling,  fearful  of  the  unseen 
and  unknown.  But  a  friendly  little  yelp 
reassured  him,  and  he  went  back  to  investi- 
gate.    A  whiff  of  warm  air  ascended  to  his 


THE  LAW  OF  CLUB  AND  FANG  51 

nostrils,  and  there,  curled  up  under  the  snow 
in  a  snug  ball,  lay  Billee.  He  whined  placat- 
ingly,  squirmed  and  wriggled  to  show  his  good 
will  and  intentions,  and  even  ventured,  as  a 
bribe  for  peace,  to  lick  Buck's  face  with  his 
warm  wet  tongue. 

Another  lesson.  So  that  was  the  way  they 
did  it,  eh  ?  Buck  confidently  selected  a  spot, 
and  with  much  fuss  and  waste  effort  proceeded 
to  dig  a  hole  for  himself.  In  a  trice  the  heat 
from  his  body  filled  the  confined  space  and 
he  was  asleep.  The  day  had  been  long  and 
arduous,  and  he  slept  soundly  and  comfort- 
ably, though  he  growled  and  barked  and 
wrestled  with  bad  dreams. 

Nor  did  he  open  his  eyes  till  roused  by  the 
noises  of  the  waking  camp.  At  first  he  did 
not  know  where  he  was.  It  had  snowed  dur- 
ing the  night  and  he  was  completely  buried. 
The  snow  walls  pressed  him  on  every  side, 
and  a  great  surge  of  fear  swept  through  him  — 
the  fear  of  the  wild  thing  for  the  trap.  It  was 
a  token  that  he  was  harking  back  through  his 
own  life  to  the  lives  of  his  forebears ;  for  he 


52         THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

was  a  civilized  dog,  an  unduly  civilized  dog, 
and  of  his  own  experience  knew  no  trap  and 
so  could  not  of  himself  fear  it.  The  muscles 
of  his  whole  body  contracted  spasmodically 
and  instinctively,  the  hair  on  his  neck  and 
shoulders  stood  on  end,  and  with  a  ferocious 
snarl  he  bounded  straight  up  into  the  blinding 
day,  the  snow  flying  about  him  in  a  flashing 
cloud.  Ere  he  landed  on  his  feet,  he  saw  the 
white  camp  spread  out  before  him  and  knew 
where  he  was  and  remembered  all  that  had 
passed  from  the  time  he  went  for  a  stroll  with 
Manuel  to  the  hole  he  had  dug  for  himself 
the  night  before. 

A  shout  from  Francois  hailed  his  appear- 
ance. "  Wot  I  say  ? "  the  dog-driver  cried 
to  Perrault.  "  Dat  Buck  for  sure  learn  queek 
as  anyt'ing." 

Perrault  nodded  gravely.  As  courier  for 
the  Canadian  Government,  bearing  important 
despatches,  he  was  anxious  to  secure  the  best 
dogs,  and  he  was  particularly  gladdened  by  the 
possession  of  Buck. 

Three   more    huskies   were    added    to   the 


FRANCOIS. 


THE   LAW   OF   CLUB   AND    FANG     55 

team  inside  an  hour,  making  a  total  of  nine, 
and  before  another  quarter  of  an  hour  had 
passed  they  were  in  harness  and  swinging  up 
the  trail  toward  the  Dyea  Canon.  Buck  was 
glad  to  be  gone,  and  though  the  work  was 
hard  he  found  he  did  not  particularly  despise 
it.  He  was  surprised  at  the  eagerness  which 
animated  the  whole  team  and  which  was  com- 
municated to  him ;  but  still  more  surprising 
was  the  change  wrought  in  Dave  and  Sol-leks. 
They  were  new  dogs,  utterly  transformed  by 
the  harness.  All  passiveness  and  unconcern 
had  dropped  from  them.  They  were  alert  and 
active,  anxious  that  the  work  should  go  well, 
and  fiercely  irritable  with  whatever,  by  delay 
or  confusion,  retarded  that  work.  The  toil 
of  the  traces  seemed  the  supreme  expression 
of  their  being,  and  all  that  they  lived  for  and 
the  only  thing  in  which  they  took  delight. 

Dave  was  wheeler  or  sled  dog,  pulling  in 
front  of  him  was  Buck,  then  came  Sol-leks  ; 
the  rest  of  the  team  was  strung  out  ahead, 
single  file,  to  the  leader,  which  position  was 
filled  by  Spitz. 


56         THE   CALL   OF   THE    WILD 

Buck  had  been  purposely  placed  between 
Dave  and  Sol-Ieks  so  that  he  might  receive 
instruction.  Apt  scholar  that  he  was,  they 
were  equally  apt  teachers,  never  allowing  him 
to  linger  long  in  error,  and  enforcing  their 
teaching  with  their  sharp  teeth.  Dave  was  fair 
and  very  wise.  He  never  nipped  Buck  with- 
out cause,  and  he  never  failed  to  nip  him 
when  he  stood  in  need  of  it.  As  Francois's 
whip  backed  him  up,  Buck  found  it  to  be 
cheaper  to  mend  his  ways  than  to  retaliate. 
Once,  during  a  brief  halt,  when  he  got  tangled 
in  the  traces  and  delayed  the  start,  both  Dave 
and  Sol-leks  flew  at  him  and  administered  a 
sound  trouncing.  The  resulting  tangle  was 
even  worse,  but  Buck  took  good  care  to  keep 
the  traces  clear  thereafter ;  and  ere  the  day  was 
done,  so  well  had  he  mastered  his  work,  his 
mates  about  ceased  nagging  him.  Francois's 
whip  snapped  less  frequently,  and  Perrault 
even  honored  Buck  by  lifting  up  his  feet  and 
carefully  examining  them. 

It  was  a  hard  day's  run,  up  the  Canon, 
through    Sheep    Camp,   past    the   Scales    and 


THE   LAW   OF   CLUB   AND   FANG     57 

the  timber  line,  across  glaciers  and  snowdrifts 
hundreds  of  feet  deep,  and  over  the  great 
Chilcoot  Divide,  which  stands  between  the  salt 
water  and  the  fresh  and  guards  forbiddingly 
the  sad  and  lonely  North.  They  made  good 
time  down  the  chain  of  lakes  which  fills  the 
craters  of  extinct  volcanoes,  and  late  that 
night  pulled  into  the  huge  camp  at  the  head 
of  Lake  Bennett,  where  thousands  of  gold- 
seekers  were  building  boats  against  the 
break-up  of  the  ice  in  the  spring.  Buck 
made  his  hole  in  the  snow  and  slept  the  sleep 
of  the  exhausted  just,  but  all  too  early  was 
routed  out  in  the  cold  darkness  and  harnessed 
with  his  mates  to  the  sled. 

That  day  they  made  forty  miles,  the  trail 
being  packed ;  but  the  next  day,  and  for  many 
days  to  follow,  they  broke  their  own  trail, 
worked  harder,  and  made  poorer  time.  As  a 
rule,  Perrault  travelled  ahead  of  the  team,  pack- 
ing the  snow  with  webbed  shoes  to  make  it 
easier  for  them.  Francois,  guiding  the  sled  at 
the  gee-pole,  sometimes  exchanged  places  with 
him,  but  not  often.     Perrault  was  in  a  hurry, 


58  THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

and  he  prided  himself  on  his  knowledge  of  ice, 
which  knowledge  was  indispensable,  for  the  fall 
ice  was  very  thin,  and  where  there  was  swift 
water,  there  was  no  ice  at  all. 

Day  after  day,  for  days  unending,  Buck 
toiled  in  the  traces.  Always,  they  broke  camp 
in  the  dark,  and  the  first  gray  of  dawn  found 
them  hitting  the  trail  with  fresh  miles  reeled 
off  behind  them.  And  always  they  pitched 
camp  after  dark,  eating  their  bit  of  fish,  and 
crawling  to  sleep  into  the  snow.  Buck  was 
ravenous.  The  pound  and  a  half  of  sun- 
dried  salmon,  which  was  his  ration  for  each 
day,  seemed  to  go  nowhere.  He  never  had 
enough,  and  suffered  from  perpetual  hunger 
pangs.  Yet  the  other  dogs,  because  they 
weighed  less  and  were  born  to  the  life,  re- 
ceived a  pound  only  of  the  fish  and  managed 
to  keep  in  good  condition. 

He  swiftly  lost  the  fastidiousness  which  had 
characterized  his  old  life.  A  dainty  eater,  he 
found  that  his  mates,  finishing  first,  robbed 
him  of  his  unfinished  ration.  There  was  no 
defending  it.     While  he  was  fighting  off"  two 


THE   LAW   OF   CLUB   AND    FANG     59 

or  three,  it  was  disappearing  down  the  throats 
of  the  others.  To  remedy  this,  he  ate  as 
fast  as  they ;  and,  so  greatly  did  hunger  com- 
pel him,  he  was  not  above  taking  what  did  not 
belong  to  him.  He  watched  and  learned. 
When  he  saw  Pike,  one  of  the  new  dogs,  a 
clever  malingerer  and  thief,  slyly  steal  a  slice 
of  bacon  when  Perrault's  back  was  turned,  he 
duplicated  the  performance  the  following  day, 
getting  away  with  the  whole  chunk.  A  great 
uproar  was  raised,  but  he  was  unsuspected ; 
while  Dub,  an  awkward  blunderer  who  was 
always  getting  caught,  was  punished  for 
Buck's    misdeed. 

This  first  theft  marked  Buck  as  fit  to  sur- 
vive in  the  hostile  Northland  environment. 
It  marked  his  adaptability,  his  capacity  to  ad- 
just himself  to  changing  conditions,  the  lack 
of  which  would  have  meant  swift  and  terrible 
death.  It  marked,  further,  the  decay  or  going 
to  pieces  of  his  moral  nature,  a  vain  thing  and 
a  handicap  in  the  ruthless  struggle  for  existence. 
It  was  all  well  enough  in  the  Southland,  under 
the  law  of  love  and  fellowship,  to  respect  pri- 


60         THE   CALL   OF   THE  WILD 

vate  property  and  personal  feelings ;  but  in  the 
Northland,  under  the  law  of  club  and  fang, 
whoso  took  such  things  into  account  was  a  fool, 
and  in  so  far  as  he  observed  them  he  would 
fail  to  prosper. 

Not  that  Buck  reasoned  it  out.  He  was 
fit,  that  was  all,  and  unconsciously  he  accommo- 
dated himself  to  the  new  mode  of  life.  All 
his  days,  no  matter  what  the  odds,  he  had 
never  run  from  a  fight.  But  the  club  of  the 
man  in  the  red  sweater  had  beaten  into 
him  a  more  fundamental  and  primitive  code. 
Civilized,  he  could  have  died  for  a  moral 
consideration,  say  the  defence  of  Judge 
Miller's  riding-whip ;  but  the  completeness 
of  his  decivilization  was  now  evidenced  by 
his  ability  to  flee  from  the  defence  of  a  moral 
consideration  and  so  save  his  hide.  He  did 
not  steal  for  joy  of  it,  but  because  of  the 
clamor  of  his  stomach.  He  did  not  rob 
openly,  but  stole  secretly  and  cunningly,  out 
of  respect  for  club  and  fang.  In  short,  the 
things  he  did  were  done  because  it  was  easier 
to  do  them  than  not  to  do  them. 


THE   LAW   OF   CLUB   AND   FANG     61 

His  development  (or  retrogression)  was 
rapid.  His  muscles  became  hard  as  iron, 
and  he  grew  callous  to  all  ordinary  pain. 
He  achieved  an  internal  as  well  as  external 
economy.  He  could  eat  anything,  no  matter 
how  loathsome  or  indigestible ;  and,  once 
eaten,  the  juices  of  his  stomach  extracted  the 
last  least  particle  of  nutriment ;  and  his  blood 
carried  it  to  the  farthest  reaches  of  his  body, 
building  it  into  the  toughest  and  stoutest  of 
tissues.  Sight  and  scent  became  remarkably 
keen,  while  his  hearing  developed  such  acute- 
ness  that  in  his  sleep  he  heard  the  faintest 
sound  and  knew  whether  it  heralded  peace  or 
peril.  He  learned  to  bite  the  ice  out  with  his 
teeth  when  it  collected  between  his  toes ;  and 
when  he  was  thirsty  and  there  was  a  thick 
scum  of  ice  over  the  water  hole,  he  would 
break  it  by  rearing  and  striking  it  with  stiff 
fore  legs.  His  most  conspicuous  trait  was 
an  ability  to  scent  the  wind  and  forecast  it  a 
night  in  advance.  No  matter  how  breathless 
the  air  when  he  dug  his  nest  by  tree  or  bank, 
the  wind  that  later  blew  inevitably  found  him 
to  leeward,  sheltered  and  snug. 


62         THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

And  not  only  did  he  learn  by  experience,  but 
instincts  long  dead  became  alive  again.  The 
domesticated  generations  fell  from  him.  In 
vague  ways  he  remembered  back  to  the  youth 
of  the  breed,  to  the  time  the  wild  dogs  ranged 
in  packs  through  the  primeval  forest  and  killed 
their  meat  as  they  ran  it  down.  It  was  no 
task  for  him  to  learn  to  fight  with  cut  and 
slash  and  the  quick  wolf  snap.  In  this  man- 
ner had  fought  forgotten  ancestors.  They 
quickened  the  old  life  within  him,  and  the  old 
tricks  which  they  had  stamped  into  the  hered- 
ity of  the  breed  were  his  tricks.  They  came 
to  him  without  effort  or  discovery,  as  though 
they  had  been  his  always.  And  when,  on  the 
still  cold  nights,  he  pointed  his  nose  at  a  star 
and  howled  long  and  wolflike,  it  was  his  an- 
cestors, dead  and  dust,  pointing  nose  at  star 
and  howling  down  through  the  centuries  and 
through  him.  And  his  cadences  were  their 
cadences,  the  cadences  which  voiced  their  woe 
and  what  to  them  was  the  meaning  of  the  still- 
ness, and  the  cold,  and  dark. 

Thus,  as  token  of  what  a  puppet  thing  life 


THE   LAW   OF   CLUB   AND   FANG     63 

is,  the  ancient  song  surged  through  him  and 
he  came  into  his  own  again ;  and  he  came 
because  men  had  found  a  yellow  metal  in  the 
North,  and  because  Manuel  was  a  gardener's 
helper  whose  wages  did  not  lap  over  the 
needs  of  his  wife  and  divers  small  copies  of 
himself. 


Ill 


THE   DOMINANT   PRIMORDIAL 
BEAST 


WSk^Mfc^ 


Ill 


The  Dominant   Primordial   Beast 


THE  dominant  primordial  beast  was 
strong  in  Buck,  and  under  the  fierce 
conditions  of  -trail  life  it  grew  and 
grew.  Yet  it  was  a  secret  growth.  His  new- 
born cunning  gave  him  poise  and  control. 
He  was  too  busy  adjusting  himself  to  the  new 
life  to  feel  at  ease,  and  not  only  did  he  not 
pick  fights,  but  he  avoided  them  whenever 
possible.  A  certain  deliberateness  characterized 
his  attitude.  He  was  not  prone  to  rashness 
and  precipitate  action  ;  and  in  the  bitter  hatred 
between  him  and  Spitz  he  betrayed  no  impa- 
tience, shunned  all  offensive  acts. 

67 


68  THE    CALL    OF   THE   WILD 

On  the  other  hand,  possibly  because  he 
divined  in  Buck  a  dangerous  rival,  Spitz  never 
lost  an  opportunity  of  showing  his  teeth.  He 
even  went  out  of  his  way  to  bully  Buck,  striv- 
ing constantly  to  start  the  fight  which  could 
end  only  in  the  death  of  one  or  the  other. 
Early  in  the  trip  this  might  have  taken  place 
had  it  not  been  for  an  unwonted  accident.  At 
the  end  of  this  day  they  made  a  bleak  and 
miserable  camp  on  the  shore  of  Lake  Le 
Barge.  Driving  snow,  a  wind  that  cut  like  a 
white-hot  knife,  and  darkness  had  forced  them 
to  grope  for  a  camping  place.  They  could 
hardly  have  fared  worse.  At  their  backs  rose 
a  perpendicular  wall  of  rock,  and  Perrault  and 
Francois  were  compelled  to  make  their  fire 
and  spread  their  sleeping  robes  on  the  ice  of 
the  lake  itself.  The  tent  they  had  discarded 
at  Dyea  in  order  to  travel  light.  A  few  sticks 
of  driftwood  furnished  them  with  a  fire  that 
thawed  down  through  the  ice  and  left  them  to 
eat  supper  in  the  dark. 

Close  in  under  the  sheltering  rock  Buck 
made  his  nest.     So  snug  and  warm  was  it,  that 


DOMINANT   PRIMORDIAL   BEAST     69 

he  was  loath  to  leave  it  when  Francois  dis- 
tributed the  fish  which  he  had  first  thawed  over 
the  fire.  But  when  Buck  finished  his  ration 
and  returned,  he  found  his  nest  occupied.  A 
warning  snarl  told  him  that  the  trespasser  was 
Spitz.  Till  now  Buck  had  avoided  trouble  with 
his  enemy,  but  this  was  too  much.  The  beast 
in  him  roared.  He  sprang  upon  Spitz  with 
a  fury  which  surprised  them  both,  and  Spitz 
particularly,  for  his  whole  experience  with  Buck 
had  gone  to  teach  him  that  his  rival  was  an 
unusually  timid  dog,  who  managed  to  hold  his 
own  only  because  of  his  great  weight  and  size. 

Francois  was  surprised,  too,  when  they  shot 
out  in  a  tangle  from  the  disrupted  nest  and  he 
divined  the  cause  of  the  trouble.  "  A-a-ah  !  " 
he  cried  to  Buck.  "  Gif  it  to  heem,  by  Gar ! 
Gif  it  to  heem,  the  dirty  t'eef !  " 

Spitz  was  equally  willing.  He  was  crying 
with  sheer  rage  and  eagerness  as  he  circled 
back  and  forth  for  a  chance  to  spring  in. 
Buck  was  no  less  eager,  and  no  less  cautious, 
as  he  likewise  circled  back  and  forth  for  the 
advantage.     But   it  was   then    that   the  unex- 


70         THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

pected  happened,  the  thing  which  projected 
their  struggle  for  supremacy  far  into  the  future, 
past  many  a  weary  mile  of  trail  and  toil. 

An  oath  from  Perrault,  the  resounding  im- 
pact of  a  club  upon  a  bony  frame,  and  a  shrill 
yelp  of  pain,  heralded  the  breaking  forth  of 
pandemonium.  The  camp  was  suddenly  dis- 
covered to  be  alive  with  skulking  furry  forms, 
—  starving  huskies,  four  or  five  score  of  them, 
who  had  scented  the  camp  from  some  Indian 
village.  They  had  crept  in  while  Buck  and 
Spitz  were  fighting,  and  when  the  two  men 
sprang  among  them  with  stout  clubs  they 
showed  their  teeth  and  fought  back.  They 
were  crazed  by  the  smell  of  the  food.  Per- 
rault found  one  with  head  buried  in  the  grub- 
box.  His  club  landed  heavily  on  the  gaunt 
ribs,  and  the  grub-box  was  capsized  on  the 
ground.  On  the  instant  a  score  of  the  famished 
brutes  were  scrambling  for  the  bread  and  bacon. 
The  clubs  fell  upon  them  unheeded.  They 
yelped  and  howled  under  the  rain  of  blows, 
but  struggled  none  the  less  madly  till  the  last 
crumb  had  been  devoured. 


DOMINANT   PRIMORDIAL   BEAST     71 

In  the  meantime  the  astonished  team-dogs 
had  burst  out  of  their  nests  only  to  be  set 
upon  by  the  fierce  invaders.  Never  had  Buck 
seen  such  dogs.  It  seemed  as  though  their 
bones  would  burst  through  their  skins.  They 
were  mere  skeletons,  draped  loosely  in  drag- 
gled hides,  with  blazing  eyes  and  slavered 
fangs.  But  the  hunger-madness  made  them 
terrifying,  irresistible.  There  was  no  opposing 
them.  The  team-dogs  were  swept  back  against 
the  cliff  at  the  first  onset.  Buck  was  beset 
by  three  huskies,  and  in  a  trice  his  head  and 
shoulders  were  ripped  and  slashed.  The  din 
was  frightful.  Billee  was  crying  as  usual. 
Dave  and  Sol-leks,  dripping  blood  from  a 
score  of  wounds,  were  fighting  bravely  side 
by  side.  Joe  was  snapping  like  a  demon. 
Once,  his  teeth  closed  on  the  fore  leg  of  a 
husky,  and  he  crunched  down  through  the 
bone.  Pike,  the  malingerer,  leaped  upon  the 
crippled  animal,  breaking  its  neck  with  a  quick 
flash  of  teeth  and  a  jerk.  Buck  got  a  frothing 
adversary  by  the  throat,  and  was  sprayed  with 
blood  when  his  teeth  sank  through  the  jugular. 


72  THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

The  warm  taste  of  it  in  his  mouth  goaded  him 
to  greater  fierceness.  He  flung  himself  upon 
another,  and  at  the  same  time  felt  teeth  sink 
into  his  own  throat.  It  was  Spitz,  treacher- 
ously attacking  from  the  side. 

Perrault  and  Francois,  having  cleaned  out 
their  part  of  the  camp,  hurried  to  save  their 
sled-dogs.  The  wild  wave  of  famished  beasts 
rolled  back  before  them,  and  Buck  shook 
himself  free.  But  it  was  only  for  a  moment. 
The  two  men  were  compelled  to  run  back  to 
save  the  grub,  upon  which  the  huskies  re- 
turned to  the  attack  on  the  team.  Billee, 
terrified  into  bravery,  sprang  through  the 
savage  circle  and  fled  away  over  the  ice. 
Pike  and  Dub  followed  on  his  heels,  with 
the  rest  of  the  team  behind.  As  Buck  drew 
himself  together  to  spring  after  them,  out  of 
the  tail  of  his  eye  he  saw  Spitz  rush  upon  him 
with  the  evident  intention  of  overthrowing 
him.  Once  off  his  feet  and  under  that  mass 
of  huskies,  there  was  no  hope  for  him.  But 
he  braced  himself  to  the  shock  of  Spitz's 
charge,  then  joined  the  flight  out  on  the  lake. 


DOMINANT   PRIMORDIAL   BEAST     73 

Later,  the  nine  team-dogs  gathered  together 
and  sought  shelter  in  the  forest.  Though 
unpursued,  they  were  in  a  sorry  plight.  There 
was  not  one  who  was  not  wounded  in  four  or 
five  places,  while  some  were  wounded  griev- 
ously. Dub  was  badly  injured  in  a  hind  leg ; 
Dolly,  the  last  husky  added  to  the  team  at 
Dyea,  had  a  badly  torn  throat;  Joe  had  lost 
an  eye;  while  Billee,  the  good-natured,  with 
an  ear  chewed  and  rent  to  ribbons,  cried  and 
whimpered  throughout  the  night.  At  day- 
break they  limped  warily  back  to  camp,  to 
find  the  marauders  gone  and  the  two  men  in 
bad  tempers.  Fully  half  their  grub  supply 
was  gone.  The  huskies  had  chewed  through 
the  sled  lashings  and  canvas  coverings.  In 
fact,  nothing,  no  matter  how  remotely  eatable, 
had  escaped  them.  They  had  eaten  a  pair  of 
Perrault's  moose-hide  moccasins,  chunks  out 
of  the  leather  traces,  and  even  two  feet  of  lash 
from  the  end  of  Francois's  whip.  He  broke 
from  a  mournful  contemplation  of  it  to  look 
over  his  wounded  dogs. 

"Ah,  my  frien's,"  he  said  softly,  "  mebbe 


74         THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

it  mek  you  mad  dog,  dose  many  bites.  Mebbe 
all  mad  dog,  sacredam !  Wot  you  t'ink,  eh, 
Perrault  ? " 

The  courier  shook  his  head  dubiously.  With 
four  hundred  miles  of  trail  still  between  him 
and  Dawson,  he  could  ill  afford  to  have 
madness  break  out  among  his  dogs.  Two 
hours  of  cursing  and  exertion  got  the  harnesses 
into  shape,  and  the  wound-stiffened  team  was 
under  way,  struggling  painfully  over  the  hardest 
part  of  the  trail  they  had  yet  encountered,  and 
for  that  matter,  the  hardest  between  them  and 
Dawson. 

The  Thirty  Mile  River  was  wide  open.  Its 
wild  water  defied  the  frost,  and  it  was  in  the 
eddies  only  and  in  the  quiet  places  that  the 
ice  held  at  all.  Six  days  of  exhausting  toil 
were  required  to  cover  those  thirty  terrible 
miles.  And  terrible  they  were,  for  every  foot 
of  them  was  accomplished  at  the  risk  of  life 
to  dog  and  man.  A  dozen  times,  Perrault, 
nosing  the  way,  broke  through  the  ice  bridges, 
being  saved  by  the  long  pole  he  carried,  which 
he  so  held  that  it  fell  each  time  across  the 


DOMINANT   PRIMORDIAL   BEAST     75 

hole  made  by  his  body.  But  a  cold  snap  was 
on,  the  thermometer  registering  fifty  below 
zero,  and  each  time  he  broke  through  he  was 
compelled  for  very  life  to  build  a  fire  and  dry 
his  garments. 

Nothing  daunted  him.  It  was  because 
nothing  daunted  him  that  he  had  been  chosen 
for  government  courier.  He  took  all  manner 
of  risks,  resolutely  thrusting  his  little  weazened 
face  into  the  frost  and  struggling  on  from  dim 
dawn  to  dark.  He  skirted  the  frowning 
shores  on  rim  ice  that  bent  and  crackled 
under  foot  and  upon  which  they  dared  not 
halt.  Once,  the  sled'  broke  through,  with 
Dave  and  Buck,  and  they  were  half-frozen 
and  all  but  drowned  by  the  time  they  were 
dragged  out.  The  usual  fire  was  necessary  to 
save  them.  They  were  coated  solidly  with 
ice,  and  the  two  men  kept  them  on  the  run 
around  the  fire,  sweating  and  thawing,  so  close 
that  they  were  singed  by  the  flames. 

At  another  time  Spitz  went  through,  drag- 
ging the  whole  team  after  him  up  to  Buck, 
who  strained  backward  with  all  his  strength, 


76         THE   CALL   OF  THE   WILD 

his  fore  paws  on  the  slippery  edge  and  the 
ice  quivering  and  snapping  all  around.  But 
behind  him  was  Dave,  likewise  straining  back- 
ward, and  behind  the  sled  was  Francois, 
pulling  till  his  tendons  cracked. 

Again,  the  rim  ice  broke  away  before  and 
behind,  and  there  was  no  escape  except  up 
the  cliff.  Perrault  scaled  it  by  a  miracle, 
while  Francois  prayed  for  just  that  miracle ; 
and  with  every  thong  and  sled  lashing  and  the 
last  bit  of  harness  rove  into  a  long  rope,  the 
dogs  were  hoisted,  one  by  one,  to  the  cliff 
crest.  Francois  came  up  last,  after  the 
sled  and  load.  Then  came  the  search  for  a 
place  to  descend,  which  descent  was  ultimately 
made  by  the  aid  of  the  rope,  and  night  found 
them  back  on  the  river  with  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  to  the  day's  credit. 

By  the  time  they  made  the  Hootalinqua 
and  good  ice,  Buck  was  played  out.  The 
rest  of  the  dogs  were  in  like  condition ;  but 
Perrault,  to  make  up  lost  time,  pushed  them 
late  and  early.  The  first  day  they  covered 
thirty-five  miles  to  the  Big  Salmon ;  the  next 


DOMINANT   PRIMORDIAL   BEAST     77 

day  thirty-five  more  to  the  Little  Salmon ;  the 
third  day  forty  miles,  which  brought  them  well 
up  toward  the  Five  Fingers. 

Buck's  feet  were  not  so  compact  and  hard 
as  the  feet  of  the  huskies.  His  had  softened 
during  the  many  generations  since  the  day 
his  last  wild  ancestor  was  tamed  by  a  cave- 
dweller  or  river  man.  All  day  long  he 
limped  in  agony,  and  camp  once  made,  lay 
down  like  a  dead  dog.  Hungry  as  he  was, 
he  would  not  move  to  receive  his  ration  of 
fish,  which  Francois  had  to  bring  to  him. 
Also,  the  dog-driver  rubbed  Buck's  feet  for 
half  an  hour  each  night  after  supper,  and 
sacrificed  the  tops  of  his  own  moccasins  to 
make  four  moccasins  for  Buck.  This  was  a 
great  relief,  and  Buck  caused  even  the  weazened 
face  of  Perrault  to  twist  itself  into  a  grin  one 
morning,  when  Francois  forgot  the  moccasins 
and  Buck  lay  on  his  back,  his  four  feet  waving 
appealingly  in  the  air,  and  refused  to  budge  with- 
out them.  Later  his  feet  grew  hard  to  the  trail, 
and  the  worn-out  foot-gear  was  thrown  away. 

At  the    Pelly  one   morning,   as    they  were 


78  THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

harnessing  up,  Dolly,  who  had  never  been 
conspicuous  for  anything,  went  suddenly  mad. 
She  announced  her  condition  by  a  long,  heart- 
breaking wolf  howl  that  sent  every  dog  bris- 
tling with  fear,  then  sprang  straight  for  Buck. 
He  had  never  seen  a  dog  go  mad,  nor  did 
he  have  any  reason  to  fear  madness ;  yet  he 
knew  that  here  was  horror,  and  fled  away 
from  it  in  a  panic.  Straight  away  he  raced, 
with  Dolly,  panting  and  frothing,  one  leap 
behind ;  nor  could  she  gain  on  him,  so  great 
was  his  terror,  nor  could  he  leave  her,  so  great 
was  her  madness.  He  plunged  through  the 
wooded  breast  of  the  island,  flew  down  to 
the  lower  end,  crossed  a  back  channel  filled 
with  rough  ice  to  another  island,  gained  a 
third  island,  curved  back  to  the  main  river, 
and  in  desperation  started  to  cross  it.  And 
all  the  time,  though  he  did  not  look,  he 
could  hear  her  snarling  just  one  leap  behind. 
Francois  called  to  him  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
away  and  he  doubled  back,  still  one  leap 
ahead,  gasping  painfully  for  air  and  putting 
all    his    faith    in    that    Francois   would    save 


DOMINANT   PRIMORDIAL   BEAST     79 

him.  The  dog-driver  held  the  axe  poised 
in  his  hand,  and  as  Buck  shot  past  him  the 
axe  crashed  down  upon  mad  Dolly's  head. 

Buck  staggered  over  against  the  sled,  ex- 
hausted, sobbing  for  breath,  helpless.  This 
was  Spitz's  opportunity.  He  sprang  upon 
Buck,  and  twice  his  teeth  sank  into  his  un- 
resisting foe  and  ripped  and  tore  the  flesh 
to  the  bone.  Then  Francois's  lash  descended, 
and  Buck  had  the  satisfaction  of  watching  Spitz 
receive  the  worst  whipping  as  yet  administered 
to  any  of  the  teams. 

"One  devil,  dat  Spitz,"  remarked  Perrault. 
"  Some  dam  day  heem  keel  dat  Buck." 

"  Dat  Buck  two  devils,"  was  Francois's 
rejoinder.  "  All  de  tarn  I  watch  dat  Buck 
I  know  for  sure.  Lissen :  some  dam  fine 
day  heem  get  mad  lak  hell  an'  den  heem  chew 
dat  Spitz  all  up  an'  spit  heem  out  on  de 
snow.     Sure.     I  know." 

From  then  on  it  was  war  between  them. 
Spitz,  as  lead-dog  and  acknowledged  master 
of  the  team,  felt  his  supremacy  threatened  by 
this    strange    Southland    dog.      And    strange 


80         THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

Buck  was  to  him,  for  of  the  many  Southland 
dogs  he  had  known,  not  one  had  shown  up 
worthily  in  camp  and  on  trail.  They  were 
all  too  soft,  dying  under  the  toil,  the  frost, 
and  starvation.  Buck  was  the  exception.  He 
alone  endured  and  prospered,  matching  the 
husky  in  strength,  savagery,  and  cunning. 
Then  he  was  a  masterful  dog,  and  what  made 
him  dangerous  was  the  fact  that  the  club  of 
the  man  in  the  red  sweater  had  knocked  all 
blind  pluck  and  rashness  out  of  his  desire 
for  mastery.  He  was  preeminently  cunning, 
and  could  bide  his  time  with  a  patience  that 
was  nothing  less  than  primitive. 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  clash  for  leader- 
ship should  come.  Buck  wanted  it.  He 
wanted  it  because  it  was  his  nature,  because 
he  had  been  gripped  tight  by  that  nameless, 
incomprehensible  pride  of  the  trail  and  trace 
—  that  pride  which  holds  dogs  in  the  toil  to 
the  last  gasp,  which  lures  them  to  die  joyfully 
in  the  harness,  and  breaks  their  hearts  if  they 
are  cut  out  of  the  harness.  This  was  the 
pride    of  Dave   as  wheel-dog,  of  Sol-leks   as 


DOMINANT   PRIMORDIAL    BEAST     81 

he  pulled  with  all  his  strength ;  the  pride  that 
laid  hold  of  them  at  break  of  camp,  trans- 
forming them  from  sour  and  sullen  brutes  into 
straining,  eager,  ambitious  creatures  ;  the  pride 
that  spurred  them  on  all  day  and  dropped 
them  at  pitch  of  camp  at  night,  letting  them 
fall  back  into  gloomy  unrest  and  uncontent. 
This  was  the  pride  that  bore  up  Spitz  and 
made  him  thrash  the  sled-dogs  who  blundered 
and  shirked  in  the  traces  or  hid  away  at 
harness-up  time  in  the  morning.  Likewise 
it  was  this  pride  that  made  him  fear  Buck 
as  a  possible  lead-dog.  And  this  was  Buck's 
pride,  too. 

He  openly  threatened  the  other's  leader- 
ship. He  came  between  him  and  the  shirks 
he  should  have  punished.  And  he  did  it 
deliberately.  One  night  there  was  a  heavy 
snowfall,  and  in  the  morning  Pike,  the  malin- 
gerer, did  not  appear.  He  was  securely  hid- 
den in  his  nest  under  a  foot  of  snow.  Francois 
called  him  and  sought  him  in  vain.  Spitz 
was  wild  with  wrath.  He  raged  through  the 
camp,  smelling   and   digging   in    every  likely 


82  THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

place,  snarling  so  frightfully  that  Pike  heard 
and  shivered  in  his  hiding-place. 

But  when  he  was  at  last  unearthed,  and 
Spitz  flew  at  him  to  punish  him,  Buck  flew, 
with  equal  rage,  in  between.  So  unexpected 
was  it,  and  so  shrewdly  managed,  that  Spitz 
was  hurled  backward  and  off  his  feet.  Pike, 
who  had  been  trembling  abjectly,  took  heart 
at  this  open  mutiny,  and  sprang  upon  his 
overthrown  leader.  Buck,  to  whom  fair  play 
was  a  forgotten  code,  likewise  sprang  upon 
Spitz.  But  Francois,  chuckling  at  the  inci- 
dent while  unswerving  in  the  administration 
of  justice,  brought  his  lash  down  upon  Buck 
with  all  his  might.  This  failed  to  drive  Buck 
from  his  prostrate  rival,  and  the  butt  of  the 
whip  was  brought  into  play.  Half-stunned 
by  the  blow,  Buck  was  knocked  backward  and 
the  lash  laid  upon  him  again  and  again,  while 
Spitz  soundly  punished  the  many  times  offend- 
ing Pike. 

In  the  days  that  followed,  as  Dawson  grew 
closer  and  closer,  Buck  still  continued  to  inter- 
fere  between    Spitz   and   the  culprits ;  but  he 


DOMINANT   PRIMORDIAL   BEAST     83 

did  it  craftily,  when  Francois  was  not  around. 
With  the  covert  mutiny  of  Buck,  a  general  in- 
subordination sprang  up  and  increased.  Dave 
and  Sol-leks  were  unaffected,  but  the  rest  of 
the  team  went  from  bad  to  worse.  Things 
no  longer  went  right.  There  was  continual 
bickering  and  jangling.  Trouble  was  always 
afoot,  and  at  the  bottom  of  it  was  Buck.  He 
kept  Francois  busy,  for  the  dog-driver  was 
in  constant  apprehension  of  the  life-and-death 
struggle  between  the  two  which  he  knew  must 
take  place  sooner  or  later ;  and  on  more  than 
one  night  the  sounds  of  quarrelling  and  strife 
among  the  other  dogs  turned  him  out  of  his 
sleeping  robe,  fearful  that  Buck  and  Spitz  were 
at  it. 

But  the  opportunity  did  not  present  itself, 
and  they  pulled  into  Dawson  one  dreary  after- 
noon with  the  great  fight  still  to  come.  Here 
were  many  men,  and  countless  dogs,  and  Buck 
found  them  all  at  work.  It  seemed  the  or- 
dained order  of  things  that  dogs  should  work. 
All  day  they  swung  up  and  down  the  main 
street  in  long  teams,  and  in   the    night  their 


84         THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

jingling  bells  still  went  by.  They  hauled 
cabin  logs  and  firewood,  freighted  up  to  the 
mines,  and  did  all  manner  of  work  that  horses 
did  in  the  Santa  Clara  Valley.  Here  and 
there  Buck  met  Southland  dogs,  but  in  the 
main  they  were  the  wild  wolf  husky  breed. 
Every  night,  regularly,  at  nine,  at  twelve,  at 
three,  they  lifted  a  nocturnal  song,  a  weird  and 
eerie  chant,  in  which  it  was  Buck's  delight  to 
join. 

With  the  aurora  borealis  flaming  coldly 
overhead,  or  the  stars  leaping  in  the  frost 
dance,  and  the  land  numb  and  frozen  under 
its  pall  of  snow,  this  song  of  the  huskies  might 
have  been  the  defiance  of  life,  only  it  was 
pitched  in  minor  key,  with  long-drawn  wait- 
ings and  half-sobs,  and  was  more  the  pleading 
of  life,  the  articulate  travail  of  existence.  It 
was  an  old  song,  old  as  the  breed  itself —  one 
of  the  first  songs  of  the  younger  world  in  a 
day  when  songs  were  sad.  It  was  invested 
with  the  woe  of  unnumbered  generations,  this 
plaint  by  which  Buck  was  so  strangely  stirred. 
When  he  moaned  and  sobbed,  it  was  with  the 


"With  the  aurora  borealis  flaming  coldly  overhead." 


DOMINANT   PRIMORDIAL    BEAST     87 

pain  of  living  that  was  of  old  the  pain  of  his 
wild  fathers,  and  the  fear  and  mystery  of  the 
cold  and  dark  that  was  to  them  fear  and  mys- 
tery. And  that  he  should  be  stirred  by  it 
marked  the  completeness  with  which  he  harked 
back  through  the  ages  of  fire  and  roof  to  the 
raw  beginnings  of  life  in  the  howling  ages. 

Seven  days  from  the  time  they  pulled  into 
Dawson,  they  dropped  down  the  steep  bank 
by  the  Barracks  to  the  Yukon  Trail,  and 
pulled  for  Dyea  and  Salt  Water.  Perrault 
was  carrying  despatches  if  anything  more  ur- 
gent than  those  he  had  brought  in ;  also,  the 
travel  pride  had  gripped  him,  and  he  purposed 
to  make  the  record  trip  of  the  year.  Several 
things  favored  him  in  this.  The  week's  rest 
had  recuperated  the  dogs  and  put  them  in 
thorough  trim.  The  trail  they  had  broken 
into  the  country  was  packed  hard  by  later 
journeyers.  And  further,  the  police  had  ar- 
ranged in  two  or  three  places  deposits  of  grub 
for  dog  and  man,  and  he  was  travelling  light. 

They  made  Sixty  Mile,  which  is  a  fifty-mile 
run,  on  the  first  day ;  and  the  second  day  saw 


88  THE   CALL    OF   THE   WILD 

them  booming  up  the  Yukon  well  on  their 
way  to  Pelly.  But  such  splendid  running  was 
achieved  not  without  great  trouble  and  vexa- 
tion on  the  part  of  Francois.  The  insidious 
revolt  led  by  Buck  had  destroyed  the  solidarity 
of  the  team.  It  no  longer  was  as  one  dog 
leaping  in  the  traces.  The  encouragement 
Buck  gave  the  rebels  led  them  into  all  kinds 
of  petty  misdemeanors.  No  more  was  Spitz 
a  leader  greatly  to  be  feared.  The  old  awe 
departed,  and  they  grew  equal  to  challenging 
his  authority.  Pike  robbed  him  of  half  a  fish 
one  night,  and  gulped  it  down  under  the  pro- 
tection of  Buck.  Another  night  Dub  and  Joe 
fought  Spitz  and  made  him  forego  the  punish- 
ment they  deserved.  And  even  Billee,  the 
good-natured,  was  less  good-natured,  and 
whined  not  half  so  placatingly  as  in  former 
days.  Buck  never  came  near  Spitz  without 
snarling  and  bristling  menacingly.  In  fact, 
his  conduct  approached  that  of  a  bully,  and 
he  was  given  to  swaggering  up  and  down 
before  Spitz's  very  nose. 

The    breaking   down  of  discipline   likewise 


DOMINANT   PRIMORDIAL   BEAST     89 

affected  the  dogs  in  their  relations  with  one 
another.  They  quarrelled  and  bickered  more 
than  ever  among  themselves,  till  at  times  the 
camp  was  a  howling  bedlam.  Dave  and  Sol- 
leks  alone  were  unaltered,  though  they  were 
made  irritable  by  the  unending  squabbling. 
Francis  swore  strange  barbarous  oaths,  and 
stamped  the  snow  in  futile  rage,  and  tore  his 
hair.  His  lash  was  always  singing  among  the 
dogs,  but  it  was  of  small  avail.  Directly  his 
back  was  turned  they  were  at  it  again.  He 
backed  up  Spitz  with  his  whip,  while  Buck 
backed  up  the  remainder  of  the  team.  Fran- 
9ois  knew  he  was  behind  all  the  trouble,  and 
Buck  knew  he  knew ;  but  Buck  was  too  clever 
ever  again  to  be  caught  red-handed.  He 
worked  faithfully  in  the  harness,  for  the  toil 
had  become  a  delight  to  him ;  yet  it  was  a 
greater  delight  slyly  to  precipitate  a  fight 
amongst  his  mates   and  tangle  the  traces. 

At  the  mouth  of  the  Tahkeena,  one  night 
after  supper,  Dub  turned  up  a  snowshoe  rab- 
bit, blundered  it,  and  missed.  In  a  second  the 
whole  team  was  in  full  cry.     A  hundred  yards 


90         THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

away  was  a  camp  of  the  Northwest  Police, 
with  fifty  dogs,  huskies  all,  who  joined  the 
chase.  The  rabbit  sped  down  the  river, 
turned  off  into  a  small  creek,  up  the  frozen 
bed  of  which  it  held  steadily.  It  ran  lightly 
on  the  surface  of  the  snow,  while  the  dogs 
ploughed  through  by  main  strength.  Buck 
led  the  pack,  sixty  strong,  around  bend  after 
bend,  but  he  could  not  gain.  He  lay  down 
low  to  the  race,  whining  eagerly,  his  splendid 
body  flashing  forward,  leap  by  leap,  in  the  wan 
white  moonlight.  And  leap  by  leap,  like 
some  pale  frost  wraith,  the  snowshoe  rabbit 
flashed  on  ahead. 

All  that  stirring  of  old  instincts  which  at 
stated  periods  drives  men  out  from  the  sound- 
ing cities  to  forest  and  plain  to  kill  things  by 
chemically  propelled  leaden  pellets,  the  blood 
lust,  the  joy  to  kill  —  all  this  was  Buck's, 
only  it  was  infinitely  more  intimate.  He  was 
ranging  at  the  head  of  the  pack,  running  the 
wild  thing  down,  the  living  meat,  to  kill  with 
his  own  teeth  and  wash  his  muzzle  to  the  eyes 
in  warm  blood. 


DOMINANT   PRIMORDIAL   BEAST     91 

There  is  an  ecstasy  that  marks  the  summit 
of  life,  and  beyond  which  life  cannot  rise. 
And  such  is  the  paradox  of  living,  this  ecstasy 
comes  when  one  is  most  alive,  and  it  comes 
as  a  complete  forgetfulness  that  one  is  alive. 
This  ecstasy,  this  forgetfulness  of  living,  comes 
to  the  artist,  caught  up  and  out  of  himself  in 
a  sheet  of  flame ;  it  comes  to  the  soldier,  war- 
mad  on  a  stricken  field  and  refusing  quarter ; 
and  it  came  to  Buck,  leading  the  pack,  sound- 
ing the  old  wolf-cry,  straining  after  the  food 
that  was  alive  and  that  fled  swiftly  before  him 
through  the  moonlight.  He  was  sounding 
the  deeps  of  his  nature,  and  of  the  parts 
of  his  nature  that  were  deeper  than  he, 
going  back  into  the  womb  of  Time.  He 
was  mastered  by  the  sheer  surging  of  life,  the 
tidal  wave  of  being,  the  perfect  joy  of  each 
separate  muscle,  joint,  and  sinew  in  that  it  was 
everything  that  was  not  death,  that  it  was 
aglow  and  rampant,  expressing  itself  in  move- 
ment, flying  exultantly  under  the  stars  and 
over  the  face  of  dead  matter  that  did  not 
move. 


92  THE   CALL   OF   THE  WILD 

But  Spitz,  cold  and  calculating  even  in  his 
supreme  moods,  left  the  pack  and  cut  across  a 
narrow  neck  of  land  where  the  creek  made 
a  long  bend  around.  Buck  did  not  know  of 
this,  and  as  he  rounded  the  bend,  the  frost 
wraith  of  a  rabbit  still  flitting  before  him,  he 
saw  another  and  larger  frost  wraith  leap  from 
the  overhanging  bank  into  the  immediate  path 
of  the  rabbit.  It  was  Spitz.  The  rabbit  could 
not  turn,  and  as  the  white  teeth  broke  its  back 
in  mid  air  it  shrieked  as  loudly  as  a  stricken 
man  may  shriek.  At  sound  of  this,  the  cry 
of  Life  plunging  down  from  Life's  apex  in  the 
grip  of  Death,  the  full  pack  at  Buck's  heels 
raised  a  hell's  chorus  of  delight. 

Buck  did  not  cry  out.  He  did  not  check 
himself,  but  drove  in  upon  Spitz,  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  so  hard  that  he  missed  the  throat. 
They  rolled  over  and  over  in  the  powdery 
snow.  Spitz  gained  his  feet  almost  as  though 
he  had  not  been  overthrown,  slashing  Buck 
down  the  shoulder  and  leaping  clear.  Twice 
his  teeth  clipped  together,  like  the  steel  jaws 
of  a  trap,  as  he  backed  away  for  better  foot- 


DOMINANT   PRIMORDIAL   BEAST     93 

ing,  with  lean  and  lifting  lips  that  writhed  and 
snarled. 

In  a  flash  Buck  knew  it.  The  time  had 
come.  It  was  to  the  death.  As  they  circled 
about,  snarling,  ears  laid  back,  keenly  watchful 
for  the  advantage,  the  scene  came  to  Buck 
with  a  sense  of  familiarity.  He  seemed  to  re- 
member it  all,  —  the  white  woods,  and  earth, 
and  moonlight,  and  the  thrill  of  battle.  Over 
the  whiteness  and  silence  brooded  a  ghostly 
calm.  There  was  not  the  faintest  whisper  of 
air  —  nothing  moved,  not  a  leaf  quivered,  the 
visible  breaths  of  the  dogs  rising  slowly  and 
lingering  in  the  frosty  air.  They  had  made 
short  work  of  the  snowshoe  rabbit,  these  dogs 
that  were  ill-tamed  wolves ;  and  they  were  now 
drawn  up  in  an  expectant  circle.  They,  too, 
were  silent,  their  eyes  only  gleaming  and  their 
breaths  drifting  slowly  upward.  To  Buck  it 
was  nothing  new  or  strange,  this  scene  of  old 
time.  It  was  as  though  it  had  always  been, 
the  wonted  way  of  things. 

Spitz  was  a  practised  fighter.  From  Spitz- 
bergen  through  the  Arctic,  and  across  Canada 


94         THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

and  the  Barrens,  he  had  held  his  own  with  all 
manner  of  dogs  and  achieved  to  mastery  over 
them.  Bitter  rage  was  his,  but  never  blind 
rage.  In  passion  to  rend  and  destroy,  he 
never  forgot  that  his  enemy  was  in  like  pas- 
sion to  rend  and  destroy.  He  never  rushed 
till  he  was  prepared  to  receive  a  rush ;  never 
attacked  till  he  had  first  defended  that  at- 
tack. 

In  vain  Buck  strove  to  sink  his  teeth  in 
the  neck  of  the  big  white  dog.  Wherever  his 
fangs  struck  for  the  softer  flesh,  they  were 
countered  by  the  fangs  of  Spitz.  Fang  clashed 
fang,  and  lips  were  cut  and  bleeding,  but  Buck 
could  not  penetrate  his  enemy's  guard.  Then 
he  warmed  up  and  enveloped  Spitz  in  a  whirl- 
wind of  rushes.  Time  and  time  again  he 
tried  for  the  snow-white  throat,  where  life 
bubbled  near  to  the  surface,  and  each  time 
and  every  time  Spitz  slashed  him  and  got  away. 
Then  Buck  took  to  rushing,  as  though  for  the 
throat,  when,  suddenly  drawing  back  his  head 
and  curving  in  from  the  side,  he  would  drive 
his  shoulder  at  the  shoulder  of  Spitz,  as  a  ram 


It  was  to  the  death." 


DOMINANT   PRIMORDIAL   BEAST     97 

by  which  to  overthrow  him.  But  instead, 
Buck's  shoulder  was  slashed  down  each  time 
as  Spitz  leaped  lightly  away. 

Spitz  was  untouched,  while  Buck  was 
streaming  with  blood  and  panting  hard.  The 
fight  was  growing  desperate.  And  all  the  while 
the  silent  and  wolfish  circle  waited  to  finish  off 
whichever  dog  went  down.  As  Buck  grew 
winded,  Spitz  took  to  rushing,  and  he  kept  him 
staggering  for  footing.  Once  Buck  went  over, 
and  the  whole  circle  of  sixty  dogs  started 
up ;  but  he  recovered  himself,  almost  in 
mid  air,  and  the  circle  sank  down  again  and 
waited. 

But  Buck  possessed  a  quality  that  made  for 
greatness  —  imagination.  He  fought  by  in- 
stinct, but  he  could  fight  by  head  as  well.  He 
rushed,  as  though  attempting  the  old  shoulder 
trick,  but  at  the  last  instant  swept  low  to  the 
snow  and  in.  His  teeth  closed  on  Spitz's  left 
fore  leg.  There  was  a  crunch  of  breaking 
bone,  and  the  white  dog  faced  him  on  three 
legs.  Thrice  he  tried  to  knock  him  over,  then 
repeated  the  trick  and  broke  the  right  fore  leg. 


98  THE   CALL    OF    THE   WILD 

Despite  the  pain  and  helplessness,  Spitz  strug- 
gled madly  to  keep  up.  He  saw  the  silent 
circle,  with  gleaming  eyes,  lolling  tongues, 
and  silvery  breaths  drifting  upward,  closing 
in  upon  him  as  he  had  seen  similar  circles 
close  in  upon  beaten  antagonists  in  the  past. 
Only  this  time  he  was  the  one  who  was 
beaten. 

There  was  no  hope  for  him.  Buck  was 
inexorable.  Mercy  was  a  thing  reserved  for 
gentler  climes.  He  manoeuvred  for  the  final 
rush.  The  circle  had  tightened  till  he  could 
feel  the  breaths  of  the  huskies  on  his  flanks. 
He  could  see  them,  beyond  Spitz  and  to  either 
side,  half  crouching  for  the  spring,  their  eyes 
fixed  upon  him.  A  pause  seemed  to  fall. 
Every  animal  was  motionless  as  though  turned 
to  stone.  Only  Spitz  quivered  and  bristled 
as  he  staggered  back  and  forth,  snarling  with 
horrible  menace,  as  though  to  frighten  off  im- 
pending death.  Then  Buck  sprang  in  and 
out ;  but  while  he  was  in,  shoulder  had  at  last 
squarely  met  shoulder.  The  dark  circle  be- 
came   a    dot   on    the    moon-flooded   snow   as 


DOMINANT   PRIMORDIAL   BEAST    99 

Spitz  disappeared  from  view.  Buck  stood  and 
looked  on,  the  successful  champion,  the  domi- 
nant primordial  beast  who  had  made  his  kill 
and  found  it  good. 


IV 
WHO   HAS  WON   TO   MASTERSHIP 


arwsmjEtfs^sj 


i 


"Mm 


.M      ITSNOWED    EVERY    DAY.       i? 


IV 

Who  has  won  to  Mastership 

EH  ?     Wot  I  say  ?     I  spik  true  w'en  I 
say  dat  Buck  two  devils." 

This  was  Francois's  speech  next 
morning  when  he  discovered  Spitz  missing 
and  Buck  covered  with  wounds.  He  drew 
him  to  the  fire  and  by  its  light  pointed  them 
out. 

"  Dat  Spitz  fight  lak  hell,"  said  Perrault,  as 
he  surveyed  the  gaping  rips  and  cuts. 

"An'  dat  Buck  fight  lak  two  hells,"  was 
Francois's  answer.  "  An'  now  we  make  good 
time.  No  more  Spitz,  no  more  trouble,  sure." 
While  Perrault  packed  the  camp  outfit  and 
loaded  the  sled,  the  dog-driver  proceeded  to 
harness  the  dogs.  Buck  trotted  up  to  the 
place  Spitz  would  have  occupied  as  leader ;  but 
Francois,  not  noticing  him,  brought   Sol-leks 

103 


104        THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

to  the  coveted  position.  In  his  judgment, 
Sol-leks  was  the  best  lead-dog  left.  Buck 
sprang  upon  Sol-leks  in  a  fury,  driving  him 
back  and  standing  in  his  place. 

"  Eh  ?  eh  ?  "  Francois  cried,  slapping  his 
thighs  gleefully.  "  Look  at  dat  Buck.  Heem 
keel  dat  Spitz,  heem  t'ink  to  take  de  job." 

"  Go  'way,  Chook ! "  he  cried,  but  Buck 
refused  to  budge. 

He  took  Buck  by  the  scruff  of  the  neck,  and 
though  the  dog  growled  threateningly,  dragged 
him  to  one  side  and  replaced  Sol-leks.  The 
old  dog  did  not  like  it,  and  showed  plainly 
that  he  was  afraid  of  Buck.  Francois  was 
obdurate,  but  when  he  turned  his  back  Buck 
again  displaced  Sol-leks,  who  was  not  at  all 
unwilling  to  go. 

Francois  was  angry.  "  Now,  by  Gar,  I 
feex  you ! "  he  cried,  coming  back  with  a 
heavy  club  in  his  hand. 

Buck  remembered  the  man  in  the  red 
sweater,  and  retreated  slowly ;  nor  did  he 
attempt  to  charge  in  when  Sol-leks  was  once 
more    brought   forward.     But    he   circled  just 


WHO    HAS   WON   TO    MASTERSHIP     105 

beyond  the  range  of  the  club,  snarling  with 
bitterness  and  rage ;  and  while  he  circled  he 
watched  the  club  so  as  to  dodge  it  if  thrown 
by  Francois,  for  he  was  become  wise  in  the 
way  of  clubs. 

The  driver  went  about  his  work,  and  he 
called  to  Buck  when  he  was  ready  to  put  him 
in  his  old  place  in  front  of  Dave.  Buck  re- 
treated two  or  three  steps.  Francois  followed 
him  up,  whereupon  he  again  retreated.  After 
some  time  of  this,  Francois  threw  down  the 
club,  thinking  that  Buck  feared  a  thrashing. 
But  Buck  was  in  open  revolt.  He  wanted, 
not  to  escape  a  clubbing,  but  to  have  the 
leadership.  It  was  his  by  right.  He  had 
earned  it,  and  he  would  not  be  content  with 
less. 

Perrault  took  a  hand.  Between  them  they 
ran  him  about  for  the  better  part  of  an  hour. 
They  threw  clubs  at  him.  He  dodged.  They 
cursed  him,  and  his  fathers  and  mothers  before 
him,  and  all  his  seed  to  come  after  him  down 
to  the  remotest  generation,  and  every  hair  on 
his  body  and  drop  of  blood  in  his  veins ;  and 


106        THE   CALL   OF   THE  WILD 

he  answered  curse  with  snarl  and  kept  out  of 
their  reach.  He  did  not  try  to  run  away,  but 
retreated  around  and  around  the  camp,  adver- 
tising plainly  that  when  his  desire  was  met,  he 
would  come  in  and  be  good. 

Francois  sat  down  and  scratched  his  head. 
Perrault  looked  at  his  watch  and  swore.  Time 
was  flying,  and  they  should  have  been  on  the 
trail  an  hour  gone.  Francois  scratched  his 
head  again.  He  shook  it  and  grinned  sheep- 
ishly at  the  courier,  who  shrugged  his  shoul- 
ders in  sign  that  they  were  beaten.  Then 
Francois  went  up  to  where  Sol-leks  stood  and 
called  to  Buck.  Buck  laughed,  as  dogs  laugh, 
yet  kept  his  distance.  Francois  unfastened 
Sol-leks's  traces  and  put  him  back  in  his  old 
place.  The  team  stood  harnessed  to  the  sled 
in  an  unbroken  line,  ready  for  the  trail. 
There  was  no  place  for  Buck  save  at  the  front. 
Once  more  Francois  called,  and  once  more 
Buck  laughed  and  kept  away. 

"  T'row  down  de  club,"  Perrault  commanded. 

Francois  complied,  whereupon  Buck  trotted 
in,  laughing  triumphantly,  and  swung  around 


WHO    HAS   WON   TO   MASTERSHIP     107 

into  position  at  the  head  of  the  team.  His 
traces  were  fastened,  the  sled  broken  out,  and 
with  both  men  running  they  dashed  out  on  to 
the  river  trail. 

Highly  as  the  dog-driver  had  forevalued 
Buck,  with  his  two  devils,  he  found,  while  the 
day  was  yet  young,  that  he  had  undervalued. 
At  a  bound  Buck  took  up  the  duties  of  leader- 
ship ;  and  where  judgment  was  required,  and 
quick  thinking  and  quick  acting,  he  showed 
himself  the  superior  even  of  Spitz,  of  whom 
Francis  had  never  seen  an  equal. 

But  it  was  in  giving  the  law  and  making  his 
mates  live  up  to  it,  that  Buck  excelled.  Dave 
and  Sol-leks  did  not  mind  the  change  in  leader- 
ship. It  was  none  of  their  business.  Their 
business  was  to  toil,  and  toil  mightily,  in  the 
traces.  So  long  as  that  were  not  interfered 
with,  they  did  not  care  what  happened.  Billee, 
the  good-natured,  could  lead  for  all  they  cared, 
so  long  as  he  kept  order.  The  rest  of  the  team, 
however,  had  grown  unruly  during  the  last 
days  of  Spitz,  and  their  surprise  was  great  now 
that  Buck  proceeded  to  lick  them  into  shape. 


108        THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

Pike,  who  pulled  at  Buck's  heels,  and  who 
never  put  an  ounce  more  of  his  weight  against 
the  breast-band  than  he  was  compelled  to  do, 
was  swiftly  and  repeatedly  shaken  for  loafing; 
and  ere  the  first  day  was  done  he  was  pulling 
more  than  ever  before  in  his  life.  The  first 
night  in  camp,  Joe,  the  sour  one,  was  punished 
roundly  —  a  thing  that  Spitz  had  never  suc- 
ceeded in  doing.  Buck  simply  smothered  him 
by  virtue  of  superior  weight,  and  cut  him  up 
till  he  ceased  snapping  and  began  to  whine  for 
mercy. 

The  general  tone  of  the  team  picked  up 
immediately.  It  recovered  its  old-time  soli- 
darity, and  once  more  the  dogs  leaped  as  one 
dog  in  the  traces.  At  the  Rink  Rapids  two 
native  huskies,  Teek  and  Koona,  were  added ; 
and  the  celerity  with  which  Buck  broke  them 
in  took  away  Francois's  breath. 

"  Nevaire  such  a  dog  as  dat  Buck ! "  he 
cried.  "  No,  nevaire !  Heem  worth  one 
t'ousan'  dollair,  by  Gar !  Eh  ?  Wot  you 
say,  Perrault  ? " 

And  Perrault  nodded.     He  was  ahead  of 


WHO    HAS   WON   TO   MASTERSHIP     iog 

the  record  then,  and  gaining  day  by  day. 
The  trail  was  in  excellent  condition,  well 
packed  and  hard,  and  there  was  no  new-fallen 
snow  with  which  to  contend.  It  was  not  too 
cold.  The  temperature  dropped  to  fifty  below 
zero  and  remained  there  the  whole  trip.  The 
men  rode  and  ran  by  turn,  and  the  dogs  were 
kept  on  the  jump,  with  but  infrequent  stoppages. 

The  Thirty  Mile  River  was  comparatively 
coated  with  ice,  and  they  covered  in  one  day 
going  out  what  had  taken  them  ten  days 
coming  in.  In  one  run  they  made  a  sixty- 
mile  dash  from  the  foot  of  Lake  Le  Barge 
to  the  White  Horse  Rapids.  Across  Marsh, 
Tagish,  and  Bennett  (seventy  miles  of  lakes), 
they  flew  so  fast  that  the  man  whose  turn  it 
was  to  run  towed  behind  the  sled  at  the  end  of 
a  rope.  And  on  the  last  night  of  the  second 
week  they  topped  White  Pass  and  dropped 
down  the  sea  slope  with  the  lights  of  Skaguay 
and  of  the  shipping  at  their  feet. 

It  was  a  record  run.  Each  day  for  fourteen 
days  they  had  averaged  forty  miles.  For  three 
days  Perrault  and  Francois   threw  chests  up 


no        THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

and  down  the  main  street  of  Skaguay  and  were 
deluged  with  invitations  to  drink,  while  the 
team  was  the  constant  centre  of  a  worshipful 
crowd  of  dog-busters  and  mushers.  Then 
three  or  four  western  bad  men  aspired  to 
clean  out  the  town,  were  riddled  like  pepper- 
boxes for  their  pains,  and  public  interest 
turned  to  other  idols.  Next  came  official 
orders.  Francois  called  Buck  to  him,  threw 
his  arms  around  him,  wept  over  him.  And 
that  was  the  last  of  Francois  and  Perrault. 
Like  other  men,  they  passed  out  of  Buck's 
life  for  good. 

A  Scotch  half-breed  took  charge  of  him  and 
his  mates,  and  in  company  with  a  dozen  other 
dog-teams  he  started  back  over  the  weary  trail 
to  Dawson.  It  was  no  light  running  now,  nor 
record  time,  but  heavy  toil  each  day,  with  a 
heavy  load  behind ;  for  this  was  the  mail  train, 
carrying  word  from  the  world  to  the  men  who 
sought  gold  under  the  shadow  of  the  Pole. 

Buck  did  not  like  it,  but  he  bore  up  well  to 
the  work,  taking  pride  in  it  after  the  manner 
of  Dave   and    Sol-leks,    and   seeing   that   his 


WHO    HAS   WON   TO    MASTERSHIP     in 

mates,  whether  they  prided  in  it  or  not,  did 
their  fair  share.  It  was  a  monotonous  life, 
operating  with  machine-like  regularity.  One 
day  was  very  like  another.  At  a  certain  time 
each  morning  the  cooks  turned  out,  fires  were 
built,  and  breakfast  was  eaten.  Then,  while 
some  broke  camp,  others  harnessed  the  dogs, 
and  they  were  under  way  an  hour  or  so  before 
the  darkness  fell  which  gave  warning  of  dawn. 
At  night,  camp  was  made.  Some  pitched  the 
flies,  others  cut  firewood  and  pine  boughs  for 
the  beds,  and  still  others  carried  water  or  ice 
for  the  cooks.  Also,  the  dogs  were  fed.  To 
them,  this  was  the  one  feature  of  the  day, 
though  it  was  good  to  loaf  around,  after  the 
fish  was  eaten,  for  an  hour  or  so  with  the  other 
dogs,  of  which  there  were  fivescore  and  odd. 
There  were  fierce  fighters  among  them,  but 
three  battles  with  the  fiercest  brought  Buck 
to  mastery,  so  that  when  he  bristled  and 
showed  his  teeth  they  got  out  of  his  way. 

Best  of  all,  perhaps,  he  loved  to  lie  near  the 
fire,  hind  legs  crouched  under  him,  fore  legs 
stretched  out  in  front,  head  raised,  and   eyes 


ii2        THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

blinking  dreamily  at  the  flames.  Sometimes 
he  thought  of  Judge  Miller's  big  house  in  the 
sun-kissed  Santa  Clara  Valley,  and  of  the 
cement  swimming- tank,  and  Ysabel,  the  Mexi- 
can hairless,  and  Toots,  the  Japanese  pug; 
but  oftener  he  remembered  the  man  in  the 
red  sweater,  the  death  of  Curly,  the  great  fight 
with  Spitz,  and  the  good  things  he  had  eaten 
or  would  like  to  eat.  He  was  not  homesick. 
The  Sunland  was  very  dim  and  distant,  and  such 
memories  had  no  power  over  him.  Far  more 
potent  were  the  memories  of  his  heredity  that 
gave  things  he  had  never  seen  before  a  seeming 
familiarity ;  the  instincts  (which  were  but  the 
memories  of  his  ancestors  become  habits) 
which  had  lapsed  in  later  days,  and  still  later, 
in  him,  quickened  and  become  alive  again. 

Sometimes  as  he  crouched  there,  blinking 
dreamily  at  the  flames,  it  seemed  that  the 
flames  were  of  another  fire,  and  that  as  he 
crouched  by  this  other  fire  he  saw  another  and 
different  man  from  the  half-breed  cook  before 
him.  This  other  man  was  shorter  of  leg  and 
longer  of  arm,  with  muscles  that  were  stringy 


WHO    HAS   WON   TO    MASTERSHIP     113 

and  knotty  rather  than  rounded  and  swelling. 
The  hair  of  this  man  was  long  and  matted, 
and  his  head  slanted  back  under  it  from  the 
eyes.  He  uttered  strange  sounds,  and  seemed 
very  much  afraid  of  the  darkness,  into  which 
he  peered  continually,  clutching  in  his  hand, 
which  hung  midway  between  knee  and  foot,  a 
stick  with  a  heavy  stone  made  fast  to  the  end. 
He  was  all  but  naked,  a  ragged  and  lire- 
scorched  skin  hanging  part  way  down  his 
back,  but  on  his  body  there  was  much  hair. 
In  some  places,  across  the  chest  and  shoulders 
and  down  the  outside  of  the  arms  and  thighs, 
it  was  matted  into  almost  a  thick  fur.  He  did 
not  stand  erect,  but  with  trunk  inclined  for- 
ward from  the  hips,  on  legs  that  bent  at  the 
knees.  About  his  body  there  was  a  peculiar 
springiness,  or  resiliency,  almost  catlike,  and  a 
quick  alertness  as  of  one  who  lived  in  perpetual 
fear  of  things  seen  and  unseen. 

At  other  times  this  hairy  man  squatted  by 
the  fire  with  head  between  his  legs  and  slept. 
On  such  occasions  his  elbows  were  on  his 
knees,   his  hands  clasped    above  his   head  as 


ii4   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

though  to  shed  rain  by  the  hairy  arms.  And 
beyond  that  fire,  in  the  circling  darkness,  Buck 
could  see  many  gleaming  coals,  two  by  two* 
always  two  by  two,  which  he  knew  to  be  the 
eyes  of  great  beasts  of  prey.  And  he  could 
hear  the  crashing  of  their  bodies  through  the 
undergrowth,  and  the  noises  they  made  in  the 
night.  And  dreaming  there  by  the  Yukon 
bank,  with  lazy  eyes  blinking  at  the  fire,  these 
sounds  and  sights  of  another  world  would 
make  the  hair  to  rise  along  his  back  and  stand 
on  end  across  his  shoulders  and  up  his  neck, 
till  he  whimpered  low  and  suppressedly,  or 
growled  softly,  and  the  half-breed  cook  shouted 
at  him,  "  Hey,  you  Buck,  wake  up ! " 
Whereupon  the  other  world  would  vanish  and 
the  real  world  come  into  his  eyes,  and  he  would 
get  up  and  yawn  and  stretch  as  though  he  had 
been  asleep. 

It  was  a  hard  trip,  with  the  mail  behind 
them,  and  the  heavy  work  wore  them  down. 
They  were  short  of  weight  and  in  poor  con- 
dition when  they  made  Dawson,  and  should 
have  had  a  ten  days'  or  a  week's  rest  at  least. 


WHO   HAS   WON  TO    MASTERSHIP     115 

But  in  two  days'  time  they  dropped  down  the 
Yukon  bank  from  the  Barracks,  loaded  with 
letters  for  the  outside.  The  dogs  were  tired, 
the  drivers  grumbling,  and  to  make  matters 
worse,  it  snowed  every  day.  This  meant  a 
soft  trail,  greater  friction  on  the  runners,  and 
heavier  pulling  for  the  dogs ;  yet  the  drivers 
were  fair  through  it  all,  and  did  their  best  for 
the  animals. 

Each  night  the  dogs  were  attended  to  first. 
They  ate  before  the  drivers  ate,  and  no  man 
sought  his  sleeping-robe  till  he  had  seen  to  the 
feet  of  the  dogs  he  drove.  Still,  their  strength 
went  down.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  winter 
they  had  travelled  eighteen  hundred  miles, 
dragging  sleds  the  whole  weary  distance ;  and 
eighteen  hundred  miles  will  tell  upon  life  of 
the  toughest.  Buck  stood  it,  keeping  his 
mates  up  to  their  work  and  maintaining  dis- 
cipline, though  he,  too,  was  very  tired.  Billee 
cried  and  whimpered  .regularly  in  his  sleep 
each  night.  Joe  was  sourer  than  ever,  and 
Sol-leks  was  unapproachable,  blind  side  or  other 
side. 


n6        THE   CALL   OF  THE   WILD 

But  it  was  Dave  who  suffered  most  of  all. 
Something  had  gone  wrong  with  him.  He 
became  more  morose  and  irritable,  and  when 
camp  was  pitched  at  once  made  his  nest,  where 
his  driver  fed  him.  Once  out  of  the  harness 
and  down,  he  did  not  get  on  his  feet  again  till 
harness-up  time  in  the  morning.  Sometimes, 
in  the  traces,  when  jerked  by  a  sudden  stop- 
page of  the  sled,  or  by  straining  to  start  it,  he 
would  cry  out  with  pain.  The  driver  ex- 
amined him,  but  could  find  nothing.  All 
the  drivers  became  interested  in  his  case. 
They  talked  it  over  at  meal-time,  and  over 
their  last  pipes  before  going  to  bed,  and  one 
night  they  held  a  consultation.  He  was 
brought  from  his  nest  to  the  fire  and  was 
pressed  and  prodded  till  he  cried  out  many 
times.  Something  was  wrong  inside,  but  they 
could  locate  no  broken  bones,  could  not  make 
it  out. 

By  the  time  Cassiar  Bar  was  reached,  he 
was  so  weak  that  he  was  falling  repeatedly  in 
the  traces.  The  Scotch  half-breed  called  a 
halt  and  took  him  out  of  the  team,  making  the 


WHO    HAS   WON   TO    MASTERSHIP     117 

next  dog,  Sol-leks,  fast  to  the  sled.  His  in- 
tention was  to  rest  Dave,  letting  him  run  free 
behind  the  sled.  Sick  as  he  was,  Dave  re- 
sented being  taken  out,  grunting  and  growling 
while  the  traces  were  unfastened,  and  whimper- 
ing broken-heartedly  when  he  saw  Sol-leks  in 
the  position  he  had  held  and  served  so  long. 
For  the  pride  of  trace  and  trail  was  his,  and, 
sick  unto  death,  he  could  not  bear  that  another 
dog  should  do  his  work. 

When  the  sled  started,  he  floundered  in  the 
soft  snow  alongside  the  beaten  trail,  attacking 
Sol-leks  with  his  teeth,  rushing  against  him 
and  trying  to  thrust  him  off  into  the  soft  snow 
on  the  other  side,  striving  to  leap  inside  his 
traces  and  get  between  him  and  the  sled,  and 
all  the  while  whining  and  yelping  and  crying 
with  grief  and  pain.  The  half-breed  tried  to 
drive  him  away  with  the  whip ;  but  he  paid  no 
heed  to  the  stinging  lash,  and  the  man  had  not 
the  heart  to  strike  harder.  Dave  refused  to 
run  quietly  on  the  trail  behind  the  sled,  where 
the  going  was  easy,  but  continued  to  flounder 
alongside  in  the  soft  snow,  where   the  going 


n8       THE   CALL   OF  THE   WILD 

was  most  difficult,  till  exhausted.  Then  he 
fell,  and  lay  where  he  fell,  howling  lugubriously 
as  the  long  train  of  sleds  churned  by. 

With  the  last  remnant  of  his  strength  he 
managed  to  stagger  along  behind  till  the  train 
made  another  stop,  when  he  floundered  past 
the  sleds  to  his  own,  where  he  stood  alongside 
Sol-leks.  His  driver  lingered  a  moment  to 
get  a  light  for  his  pipe  from  the  man  behind. 
Then  he  returned  and  started  his  dogs.  They 
swung  out  on  the  trail  with  remarkable  lack 
of  exertion,  turned  their  heads  uneasily,  and 
stopped  in  surprise.  The  driver  was  surprised, 
too  ;  the  sled  had  not  moved.  He  called  his 
comrades  to  witness  the  sight.  Dave  had 
bitten  through  both  of  Sol-leks's  traces,  and 
was  standing  directly  in  front  of  the  sled  in  his 
proper  place. 

He  pleaded  with  his  eyes  to  remain  there. 
The  driver  was  perplexed.  His  comrades 
talked  of  how  a  dog  could  break  its  heart 
through  being  denied  the  work  that  killed  it, 
and  recalled  instances  they  had  known,  where 
dogs,  too  old  for  the  toil,  or  injured,  had  died 


WHO    HAS   WON   TO    MASTERSHIP     119 

because  they  were  cut  out  of  the  traces.  Also, 
they  held  it  a  mercy,  since  Dave  was  to  die 
anyway,  that  he  should  die  in  the  traces,  heart- 
easy  and  content.  So  he  was  harnessed  in 
again,  and  proudly  he  pulled  as  of  old,  though 
more  than  once  he  cried  out  involuntarily  from 
the  bite  of  his  inward  hurt.  Several  times  he 
fell  down  and  was  dragged  in  the  traces,  and 
once  the  sled  ran  upon  him  so  that  he  limped 
thereafter  in  one  of  his  hind  legs. 

But  he  held  out  till  camp  was  reached,  when 
his  driver  made  a  place  for  him  by  the  fire. 
Morning  found  him  too  weak  to  travel.  At 
harness-up  time  he  tried  to  crawl  to  his  driver. 
By  convulsive  efforts  he  got  on  his  feet,  stag- 
gered, and  fell.  Then  he  wormed  his  way 
forward  slowly  toward  where  the  harnesses 
were  being  put  on  his  mates.  He  would  ad- 
vance his  fore  legs  and  drag  up  his  body  with 
a  sort  of  hitching  movement,  when  he  would 
advance  his  fore  legs  and  hitch  ahead  again  for 
a  few  more  inches.  His  strength  left  him,  and 
the  last  his  mates  saw  of  him  he  lay  gasping 
in  the  snow  and  yearning  toward  them.     But 


120   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

they  could  hear  him  mournfully  howling  till 
they  passed  out  of  sight  behind  a  belt  of  river 
timber. 

Here  the  train  was  halted.  The  Scotch 
half-breed  slowly  retraced  his  steps  to  the 
camp  they  had  left.  The  men  ceased  talking. 
A  revolver-shot  rang  out.  The  man  came 
back  hurriedly.  The  whips  snapped,  the  bells 
tinkled  merrily,  the  sleds  churned  along  the 
trail ;  but  Buck  knew,  and  every  dog  knew, 
what  had  taken  place  behind  the  belt  of  river 
trees. 


V 
THE  TOIL  OF  TRACE  AND  TRAIL 


rL^Sl  ©/©  jso^k 


V 

The  Toil  of  Trace  and  Trail 

THIRTY  days  from  the  time  it  left 
Dawson,  the  Salt  Water  Mail,  with 
Buck  and  his  mates  at  the  fore,  ar- 
rived at  Skaguay.  They  were  in  a  wretched 
state,  worn  out  and  worn  down.  Buck's  one 
hundred  and  forty  pounds  had  dwindled  to 
one  hundred  and  fifteen.  The  rest  of  his 
mates,  though  lighter  dogs,  had  relatively  lost 
more  weight  than  he.  Pike,  the  malingerer, 
who,  in  his  lifetime  of  deceit,  had  often  suc- 
cessfully feigned  a  hurt  leg,  was  now  limping 
in  earnest.  Sol-leks  was  limping,  and  Dub 
was  suffering  from  a  wrenched  shoulder- 
blade. 

They  were  all  terribly  footsore.  No  spring 
or  rebound  was  left  in  them.  Their  feet  fell 
heavily  on  the  trail,  jarring  their  bodies   and 

123 


124   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

doubling  the  fatigue  of  a  day's  travel.  There 
was  nothing  the  matter  with  them  except  that 
they  were  dead  tired.  It  was  not  the  dead- 
tiredness  that  comes  through  brief  and  ex- 
cessive effort,  from  which  recovery  is  a 
matter  of  hours  ;  but  it  was  the  dead-tired- 
ness that  comes  through  the  slow  and  pro- 
longed strength  drainage  of  months  of  toil. 
There  was  no  power  of  recuperation  left,  no 
reserve  strength  to  call  upon.  It  had  been 
all  used,  the  last  least  bit  of  it.  Every 
muscle,  every  fibre,  every  cell,  was  tired, 
dead  tired.  And  there  was  reason  for  it. 
In  less  than  five  months  they  had  travelled 
twenty-five  hundred  miles,  during  the  last 
eighteen  hundred  of  which  they  had  had 
but  five  days'  rest.  When  they  arrived  at 
Skaguay  they  were  apparently  on  their  last 
legs.  They  could  barely  keep  the  traces 
taut,  and  on  the  down  grades  just  managed 
to  keep  out  of  the  way  of  the  sled. 

"  Mush  on,  poor  sore  feets,"  the  driver 
encouraged  them  as  they  tottered  down  the 
main   street   of  Skaguay.      "  Dis   is   de   las'. 


THE  TOIL  OF  TRACE  AND  TRAIL     125 

Den  we  get  one  long  res'.  Eh?  For  sure. 
One  bully  long  res'." 

The  drivers  confidently  expected  a  long 
stopover.  Themselves,  they  had  covered 
twelve  hundred  miles  with  two  days'  rest, 
and  in  the  nature  of  reason  and  common 
justice  they  deserved  an  interval  of  loafing. 
But  so  many  were  the  men  who  had  rushed 
into  the  Klondike,  and  so  many  were  the 
sweethearts,  wives,  and  kin  that  had  not 
rushed  in,  that  the  congested  mail  was  tak- 
ing on  Alpine  proportions  ;  also,  there  were 
official  orders.  Fresh  batches  of  Hudson 
Bay  dogs  were  to  take  the  places  of  those 
worthless  for  the  trail.  The  worthless  ones 
were  to  be  got  rid  of,  and,  since  dogs 
count  for  little  against  dollars,  they  were  to 
be  sold. 

Three  days  passed,  by  which  time  Buck 
and  his  mates  found  how  really  tired  and 
weak  they  were.  Then,  on  the  morning  of 
the  fourth  day,  two  men  from  the  States 
came  along  and  bought  them,  harness  and 
all,   for   a   song.      The   men   addressed   each 


126    THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

other  as  "Hal"  and  "Charles."  Charles 
was  a  middle-aged,  lightish-colored  man,  with 
weak  and  watery  eyes  and  a  mustache  that 
twisted  fiercely  and  vigorously  up,  giving  the 
lie  to  the  limply  drooping  lip  it  concealed. 
Hal  was  a  youngster  of  nineteen  or  twenty, 
with  a  big  Colt's  revolver  and  a  hunting- 
knife  strapped  about  him  on  a  belt  that 
fairly  bristled  with  cartridges.  This  belt  was 
the  most  salient  thing  about  him.  It  adver- 
tised his  callowness  —  a  callowness  sheer  and 
unutterable.  Both  men  were  manifestly  out 
of  place,  and  why  such  as  they  should  ad- 
venture the  North  is  part  of  the  mystery  of 
things  that  passes  understanding. 

Buck  heard  the  chaffering,  saw  the  money 
pass  between  the  man  and  the  Government 
agent,  and  knew  that  the  Scotch  half-breed  and 
the  mail-train  drivers  were  passing  out  of  his 
life  on  the  heels  of  Perrault  and  Francois 
and  the  others  who  had  gone  before.  When 
driven  with  his  mates  to  the  new  owners' 
camp,  Buck  saw  a  slipshod  and  slovenly 
affair,    tent  half  stretched,    dishes    unwashed, 


HAL. 


THE  TOIL   OF  TRACE   AND   TRAIL     129 

everything  in  disorder ;  also,  he  saw  a 
woman.  "  Mercedes "  the  men  called  her. 
She  was  Charles's  wife  and  Hal's  sister  —  a 
nice  family  party. 

Buck  watched  them  apprehensively  as  they 
proceeded  to  take  down  the  tent  and  load 
the  sled.  There  was  a  great  deal  of  effort 
about  their  manner,  but  no  businesslike 
method.  The  tent  was  rolled  into  an  awk- 
ward bundle  three  times  as  large  as  it  should 
have  been.  The  tin  dishes  were  packed  away 
unwashed.  Mercedes  continually  fluttered  in 
the  way  of  her  men  and  kept  up  an  un- 
broken chattering  of  remonstrance  and  advice. 
When  they  put  a  clothes-sack  on  the  front 
of  the  sled,  she  suggested  it  should  go  on 
the  back ;  and  when  they  had  put  it  on  the 
back,  and  covered  it  over  with  a  couple 
of  other  bundles,  she  discovered  overlooked 
articles  which  could  abide  nowhere  else  but 
in  that  very  sack,  and  they  unloaded  again. 

Three  men  from  a  neighboring  tent  came 
out  and  looked  on,  grinning  and  winking  at 
one  another. 


130   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

"  You've  got  a  right  smart  load  as  it  is," 
said  one  of  them  ;  "  and  it's  not  me  should 
tell  you  your  business,  but  I  wouldn't  tote 
that  tent  along  if  I  was  you." 

"  Undreamed  of! "  cried  Mercedes,  throw- 
ing up  her  hands  in  dainty  dismay.  "  How- 
ever in  the  world  could  I  manage  without  a 
tent?" 

"  It's  springtime,  and  you  won't  get  any 
more  cold  weather,"  the  man  replied. 

She  shook  her  head  decidedly,  and  Charles 
and  Hal  put  the  last  odds  and  ends  on  top 
the  mountainous  load. 

"  Think  it'll  ride  ?  "  one  of  the  men  asked. 

"  Why  shouldn't  it  ? "  Charles  demanded 
rather  shortly. 

"  Oh,  that's  all  right,  that's  all  right,"  the 
man  hastened  meekly  to  say.  "  I  was  just 
a-wonderin',  that  is  all.  It  seemed  a  mite 
top-heavy." 

Charles  turned  his  back  and  drew  the  lash- 
ings down  as  well  as  he  could,  which  was 
not  in  the  least  well. 

"An'   of  course  the  dogs   can    hike   along 


THE  TOIL   OF  TRACE  AND  TRAIL     131 

all  day  with  that  contraption  behind  them," 
affirmed  a  second  of  the  men. 

"  Certainly,"  said  Hal,  with  freezing  polite- 
ness, taking  hold  of  the  gee-pole  with  one 
hand  and  swinging  his  whip  from  the  other. 
"  Mush  !  "  he  shouted.     "  Mush  on  there !  " 

The  dogs  sprang  against  the  breast-bands, 
strained  hard  for  a  few  moments,  then  relaxed. 
They  were  unable  to  move  the  sled. 

"The  lazy  brutes,  I'll  show  them,"  he  cried, 
preparing  to  lash  out  at  them  with  the  whip. 

But  Mercedes  interfered,  crying,  "  Oh,  Hal, 
you  mustn't,"  as  she  caught  hold  of  the  whip 
and  wrenched  it  from  him-.  "  The  poor  dears  ! 
Now  you  must  promise  you  won't  be  harsh 
with  them  for  the  rest  of  the  trip,  or  I  won't 
go  a  step." 

"  Precious  lot  you  know  about  dogs,"  her 
brother  sneered ;  "  and  I  wish  you'd  leave  me 
alone.  They're  lazy,  I  tell  you,  and  you've 
got  to  whip  them  to  get  anything  out  of 
them.  That's  their  way.  You  ask  any  one. 
Ask  one  of  those  men." 

Mercedes  looked  at  them  imploringly,  un- 


i32        THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

told  repugnance  at  sight  of  pain  written  in  her 
pretty  face. 

"  They're  weak  as  water,  if  you  want  to 
know,"  came  the  reply  from  one  of  the  men. 
"  Plum  tuckered  out,  that's  what's  the  matter. 
They  need  a  rest." 

"  Rest  be  blanked,"  said  Hal,  with  his 
beardless  lips  ;  and  Mercedes  said,  "  Oh  !  " 
in  pain  and  sorrow  at  the  oath. 

But  she  was  a  clannish  creature,  and  rushed 
at  once  to  the  defence  of  her  brother.  "  Never 
mind  that  man,"  she  said  pointedly.  "  You're 
driving  our  dogs,  and  you  do  what  you  think 
best  with  them." 

Again  Hal's  whip  fell  upon  the  dogs.  They 
threw  themselves  against  the  breast-bands,  dug 
their  feet  into  the  packed  snow,  got  down  low 
to  it,  and  put  forth  all  their  strength.  The 
sled  held  as  though  it  were  an  anchor.  After 
two  efforts,  they  stood  still,  panting.  The 
whip  was  whistling  savagely,  when  once  more 
Mercedes  interfered.  She  dropped  on  her 
knees  before  Buck,  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  and 
put  her  arms  around  his  neck. 


THE  TOIL  OF  TRACE  AND  TRAIL     133 

"You  poor,  poor  dears,"  she  cried  sympa- 
thetically, "  why  don't  you  pull  hard  ?  —  then 
you  wouldn't  be  whipped."  Buck  did  not 
like  her,  but  he  was  feeling  too  miserable  to 
resist  her,  taking  it  as  part  of  the  day's  mis- 
erable work. 

One  of  the  onlookers,  who  had  been  clench- 
ing his  teeth  to  suppress  hot  speech,  now 
spoke  up : — 

"  It's  not  that  I  care  a  whoop  what  becomes 
of  you,  but  for  the  dogs'  sakes  I  just  want 
to  tell  you,  you  can  help  them  a  mighty  lot 
by  breaking  out  that  sled.  The  runners  are 
froze  fast.  Throw  your  weight  against  the 
gee-pole,  right  and   left,  and    break   it  out." 

A  third  time  the  attempt  was  made,  but 
this  time,  following  the  advice,  Hal  broke 
out  the  runners  which  had  been  frozen  to  the 
snow.  The  overloaded  and  unwieldy  sled 
forged  ahead,  Buck  and  his  mates  struggling 
frantically  under  the  rain  of  blows.  A  hun- 
dred yards  ahead  the  path  turned  and  sloped 
steeply  into  the  main  street.  It  would  have 
required  an  experienced  man  to  keep  the  top- 


134        THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

heavy  sled  upright,  and  Hal  was  not  such  a 
man.  As  they  swung  on  the  turn  the  sled 
went  over,  spilling  half  its  load  through  the 
loose  lashings.  The  dogs  never  stopped. 
The  lightened  sled  bounded  on  its  side  be- 
hind them.  They  were  angry  because  of  the 
ill  treatment  they  had  received  and  the  unjust 
load.  Buck  was  raging.  He  broke  into  a 
run,  the  team  following  his  lead.  Hal  cried 
"  Whoa !  whoa !  "  but  they  gave  no  heed. 
He  tripped  and  was  pulled  off  his  feet. 
The  capsized  sled  ground  over  him,  and  the 
dogs  dashed  on  up  the  street,  adding  to  the 
gayety  of  Skaguay  as  they  scattered  the  re- 
mainder of  the  outfit  along  its  chief  thorough- 
fare. 

Kind-hearted  citizens  caught  the  dogs  and 
gathered  up  the  scattered  belongings.  Also, 
they  gave  advice.  Half  the  load  and  twice 
the  dogs,  if  they  ever  expected  to  reach 
Dawson,  was  what  was  said.  Hal  and  his 
sister  and  brother-in-law  listened  unwillingly, 
pitched  tent,  and  overhauled  the  outfit. 
Canned  goods  were  turned  out  that  made  men 


THE   TOIL   OF   TRACE  AND    TRAIL    135 

laugh,  for  canned  goods  on  the  Long  Trail 
is  a  thing  to  dream  about.  "  Blankets  for  a 
hotel,"  quoth  one  of  the  men  who  laughed 
and  helped.  "  Half  as  many  is  too  much ; 
get  rid  of  them.  Throw  away  that  tent, 
and  all  those  dishes,  —  who's  going  to  wash 
them,  anyway?  Good  Lord,  do  you. think 
you're  travelling  on  a  Pullman  ?  " 

And  so  it  went,  the  inexorable  elimination 
of  the  superfluous.  Mercedes  cried  when  her 
clothes-bags  were  dumped  on  the  ground  and 
article  after  article  was  thrown  out.  She  cried 
in  general,  and  she  cried  in  particular  over 
each  discarded  thing.  She  clasped  hands  about 
knees,  rocking  back  and  forth  broken-heart- 
edly.  She  averred  she  would  not  go  an  inch, 
not  for  a  dozen  Charleses.  She  appealed  to 
everybody  and  to  everything,  finally  wiping 
her  eyes  and  proceeding  to  cast  out  even 
articles  of  apparel  that  were  imperative  neces- 
saries. And  in  her  zeal,  when  she  had  finished 
with  her  own,  she  attacked  the  belongings  of 
her  men  and  went  through  them  like  a  tornado. 

This  accomplished,  the   outfit,  though   cut 


136    THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

in  half,  was  still  a  formidable  bulk.  Charles 
and  Hal  went  out  in  the  evening  and  bought 
six  Outside  dogs.  These,  added  to  the  six 
of  the  original  team,  and  Teek  and  Koona, 
the  huskies  obtained  at  the  Rink  Rapids  on 
the  record  trip,  brought  the  team  up  to  four- 
teen. But  the  Outside  dogs,  though  practically 
broken  in  since  their  landing,  did  not  amount 
to  much.  Three  were  short-haired  pointers, 
one  was  a  Newfoundland,  and  the  other  two 
were  mongrels  of  indeterminate  breed.  They 
did  not  seem  to  know  anything,  these  new- 
comers. Buck  and  his  comrades  looked  upon 
them  with  disgust,  and  though  he  speedily 
taught  them  their  places  and  what  not  to  do, 
he  could  not  teach  them  what  to  do.  They 
did  not  take  kindly  to  trace  and  trail.  With 
the  exception  of  the  two  mongrels,  they  were 
bewildered  and  spirit-broken  by  the  strange 
savage  environment  in  which  they  found 
themselves  and  by  the  ill  treatment  they  had 
received.  The  two  mongrels  were  without 
spirit  at  all ;  bones  were  the  only  things 
breakable  about  them.  . 


THE   TOIL    OF   TRACE  AND    TRAIL    137 

"With  the  newcomers  hopeless  and  forlorn, 
and  the  old  team  worn  out  by  twenty-five 
hundred  miles  of  continuous  trail,  the  outlook 
was  anything  but  bright.  The  two  men,  how- 
ever, were  quite  cheerful.  And  they  were 
proud,  too.  They  were  doing  the  thing  in 
style,  with  fourteen  dogs.  They  had  seen 
other  sleds  depart  over  the  Pass  for  Dawson, 
or  come  in  from  Dawson,  but  never  had  they 
seen  a  sled  with  so  many  as  fourteen  dogs. 
In  the  nature  of  Arctic  travel  there  was  a  reason 
why  fourteen  dogs  should  not  drag  one  sled, 
and  that  was  that  one  sled  could  not  carry 
the  food  for  fourteen  dogs.  But  Charles  and 
Hal  did  not  know  this.  They  had  worked 
the  trip  out  with  a  pencil,  so  much  to  a  dog, 
so  many  dogs,  so  many  days,  Q.  E.  D. 
Mercedes  looked  over  their  shoulders  and 
nodded  comprehensively,  it  was  all  so  very 
simple. 

Late  next  morning  Buck  led  the  long  team 
up  the  street.  There  was  nothing  lively  about 
it,  no  snap  or  go  in  him  and  his  fellows. 
They  were  starting  dead  weary.     Four  times 


138   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

he  had  covered  the  distance  between  Salt 
Water  and  Dawson,  and  the  knowledge  that, 
jaded  and  tired,  he  was  facing  the  same  trail 
once  more,  made  him  bitter.  His  heart  was 
not  in  the  work,  nor  was  the  heart  of  any  dog. 
The  Outsides  were  timid  and  frightened,  the 
Insides  without  confidence  in  their  masters. 

Buck  felt  vaguely  that  there  was  no  de- 
pending upon  these  two  men  and  the  woman. 
They  did  not  know  how  to  do  anything,  and 
as  the  days  went  by  it  became  apparent  that 
they  could  not  learn.  They  were  slack  in 
all  things,  without  order  or  discipline.  It 
took  them  half  the  night  to  pitch  a  slovenly 
camp,  and  half  the  morning  to  break  that 
camp  and  get  the  sled  loaded  in  fashion  so 
slovenly  that  for  the  rest  of  the  day  they 
were  occupied  in  stopping  and  rearranging 
the  load.  Some  days  they  did  not  make  ten 
miles.  On  other  days  they  were  unable  to 
get  started  at  all.  And  on  no  day  did  they 
succeed  in  making  more  than  half  the  distance 
used  by  the  men  as  a  basis  in  their  dog-food 
computation. 


THE   TOIL   OF   TRACE   AND   TRAIL    139 

It  was  inevitable  that  they  should  go  short 
on  dog-food.  But  they  hastened  it  by  over- 
feeding, bringing  the  day  nearer  when  under- 
feeding would  commence.  The  Outside  dogs, 
whose  digestions  had  not  been  trained  by 
chronic  famine  to  make  the  most  of  little,  had 
voracious  appetites.  And  when,  in  addition 
to  this,  the  worn-out  huskies  pulled  weakly, 
Hal  decided  that  the  orthodox  ration  was  too 
small.  He  doubled  it.  And  to  cap  it  all, 
when  Mercedes,  with  tears  in  her  pretty  eyes 
and  a  quaver  in  her  throat,  could  not  cajole 
him  into  giving  the  dogs  still  more,  she  stole 
from  the  fish-sacks  and  fed  them  slyly.  But 
it  was  not  food  that  Buck  and  the  huskies 
needed,  but  rest.  And  though  they  were 
making  poor  time,  the  heavy  load  they 
dragged   sapped    their   strength   severely. 

Then  came  the  underfeeding.  Hal  awoke 
one  day  to  the  fact  that  his  dog-food  was  half 
gone  and  the  distance  only  quarter  covered ; 
further,  that  for  love  or  money  no  additional 
dog-food  was  to  be  obtained.  So  he  cut  down 
even  the  orthodox  ration  and  tried  to  increase 


140        THE   CALL   OF  THE   WILD 

the  day's  travel.  His  sister  and  brother-in- 
law  seconded  him ;  but  they  were  frustrated 
by  their  heavy  outfit  and  their  own  incom- 
petence. It  was  a  simple  matter  to  give  the 
dogs  less  food ;  but  it  was  impossible  to  make 
the  dogs  travel  faster,  while  their  own  inability 
to  get  under  way  earlier  in  the  morning  pre- 
vented them  from  travelling  longer  hours.  Not 
only  did  they  not  know  how  to  work  dogs,  but 
they  did  not  know  how  to  work  themselves. 

The  first  to  go  was  Dub.  Poor  blundering 
thief  that  he  was,  always  getting  caught  and 
punished,  he  had  none  the  less  been  a  faithful 
worker.  His  wrenched  shoulder-blade,  un- 
treated and  unrested,  went  from  bad  to  worse, 
till  finally  Hal  shot  him  with  the  big  Colt's 
revolver.  It  is  a  saying  of  the  country  that 
an  Outside  dog  starves  to  death  on  the  ration 
of  the  husky,  so  the  six  Outside  dogs  under 
Buck  could  do  no  less  than  die  on  half  the 
ration  of  the  husky.  The  Newfoundland 
went  first,  followed  by  the  three  short-haired 
pointers,  the  two  mongrels  hanging  more 
grittily  on  to  life,  but  going  in  the  end. 


THE   TOIL    OF   TRACE   AND   TRAIL    141 

By  this  time  all  the  amenities  and  gentle- 
nesses of  the  Southland  had  fallen  away  from 
the  three  people.  Shorn  of  its  glamour  and 
romance,  Arctic  travel  became  to  them  a 
reality  too  harsh  for  their  manhood  and 
womanhood.  Mercedes  ceased  weeping  over 
the  dogs,  being  too  occupied  with  weeping 
over  herself  and  with  quarrelling  with  her 
husband  and  brother.  To  quarrel  was  the  one 
thing  they  were  never  too  weary  to  do.  Their 
irritability  arose  out  of  their  misery,  increased 
with  it,  doubled  upon  it,  outdistanced  it. 
The  wonderful  patience  of  the  trail  which 
comes  to  men  who  toil  hard  and  suffer  sore, 
and  remain  sweet  of  speech  and  kindly,  did 
not  come  to  these  two  men  and  the  woman. 
They  had  no  inkling  of  such  a  patience. 
They  were  stiff  and  in  pain ;  their  muscles 
ached,  their  bones  ached,  their  very  hearts 
ached  ;  and  because  of  this  they  became  sharp 
of  speech,  and  hard  words  were  first  on  their 
lips  in  the  morning  and  last  at  night. 

Charles  and  Hal  wrangled  whenever  Mer- 
cedes gave  them  a  chance.     It  was  the  cher- 


142   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

ished  belief  of  each  that  he  did  more  than  his 
share  of  the  work,  and  neither  forbore  to 
speak,  this  belief  at  every  opportunity.  Some- 
times Mercedes  sided  with  her  husband,  some- 
times with  her  brother.  The  result  was  a 
beautiful  and  unending  family  quarrel.  Start- 
ing from  a  dispute  as  to  which  should  chop 
a  few  sticks  for  the  fire   (a  dispute  which  con- 


cerned only  Charles  and  Hal),  presently 
would  be  lugged  in  the  rest  of  the  family, 
fathers,  mothers,  uncles,  cousins,  people 
thousands  of  miles  away,  and  some  of  them 
dead.  That  Hal's  views  on  art,  or  the  sort 
of  society  plays  his  mother's  brother  wrote, 
should  have  anything  to  do  with  the  chopping 
of  a"  few  sticks  of  firewood,  passes  compre- 
hension ;   nevertheless  the  quarrel  was  as  likely 


THE    TOIL    OF    TRACE    AND    TRAIL    143 

to  tend  in  that  direction  as  in  the  direction 
of  Charles's  political  prejudices.  And  that 
Charles's  sister's  tale-bearing  tongue  should 
be  relevant  to  the  building  of  a  Yukon  fire, 
was  apparent  only  to  Mercedes,  who  disbur- 
dened herself  of  copious  opinions  upon  that 
topic,  and  incidentally  upon  a  few  other  traits 


unpleasantly  peculiar  to  her  husband's  family. 
In  the  meantime  the  fire  remained  unbuilt,  the 
camp  half  pitched,  and  the  dogs  unfed. 

Mercedes  nursed  a  special  grievance  —  the 
grievance  of  sex.  She  was  pretty  and  soft, 
and  had  been  chivalrously  treated  all  her  days. 
But  the  present  treatment  by  her  husband  and 
brother  was  everything  save  chivalrous.  It 
was  her  custom  to  be  helpless.       They  com- 


i44   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

plained.  Upon  which  impeachment  of  what 
to  her  was  her  most  essential  sex-prerogative, 
she  made  their  lives  unendurable.  She  no 
longer  considered  the  dogs,  and  because  she 
was  sore  and  tired,  she  persisted  in  riding  on 
the  sled.  She  was  pretty  and  soft,  but  she 
weighed  one  hundred  and  twenty  pounds  —  a 
lusty  last  straw  to  the  load  dragged  by  the 
weak  and  starving  animals.  She  rode  for 
days,  till  they  fell  in  the  traces  and  the  sled 
stood  still.  Charles  and  Hal  begged  her  to 
get  off  and  walk,  pleaded  with  her,  entreated, 
the  while  she  wept  and  importuned  Heaven 
with  a  recital  of  their  brutality. 

On  one  occasion  they  took  her  off  the 
sled  by  main  strength.  They  never  did  it 
again.  She  let  her  legs  go  limp  like  a  spoiled 
child,  and  sat  down  on  the  trail.  They  went 
on  their  way,  but  she  did  not  move.  After 
they  had  travelled  three  miles  they  unloaded 
the  sled,  came  back  for  her,  and  by  main 
strength  put  her  on  the  sled  again. 

In  the  excess  of  their  own  misery  they 
were  callous  to  the  suffering  of  their  animals. 


THE   TOIL    OF   TRACE   AND   TRAIL    145 

Hal's  theory,  which  he  practised  on  others, 
was  that  one  must  get  hardened.  He  had 
started  out  preaching  it  to  his  sister  and 
brother-in-law.  Failing  there,  he  hammered 
it  into  the  dogs  with  a  club.  At  the  Five 
Fingers  the  dog-food  gave  out,  and  a  toothless 
old  squaw  offered  to  trade  them  a  few  pounds 
of  frozen  horse-hide  for  the  Colt's  revolver 
that  kept  the  big  hunting-knife  company  at 
Hal's  hip.  A  poor  substitute  for  food  was 
this  hide,  just  as  it  had  been  stripped  from 
the  starved  horses  of  the  cattlemen  six  months 
back.  In  its  frozen  state  it  was  more  like 
strips  of  galvanized  iron,  and  when  a  dog 
wrestled  it  into  his  stomach  it  thawed  into 
thin  and  innutritious  leathery  strings  and  into 
a  mass  of  short  hair,  irritating  and  indigestible. 
And  through  it  all  Buck  staggered  along 
at  the  head  of  the  team  as  in  a  nightmare. 
He  pulled  when  he  could ;  when  he  could 
no  longer  pull,  he  fell  down  and  remained 
down  till  blows  from  whip  or  club  drove 
him  to  his  feet  again.  All  the  stiffness  and 
gloss  had  gone  out  of  his  beautiful  furry  coat. 


146   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

The  hair  hung  down,  limp  and  draggled,  or 
matted  with  dried  blood  where  Hal's  club 
had  bruised  him.  His  muscles  had  wasted 
away  to  knotty  strings,  and  the  flesh  pads 
had  disappeared,  so  that  each  rib  and  every 
bone  in  his  frame  were  outlined  cleanly  through 
the  loose  hide  that  was  wrinkled  in  folds  of 
emptiness.  It  was  heartbreaking,  only  Buck's 
heart  was  unbreakable.  The  man  in  the  red 
sweater  had  proved  that. 

As  it  was  with  Buck,  so  was  it  with  his 
mates.  They  were  perambulating  skeletons. 
There  were  seven  all  together,  including  him. 
In  their  very  great  misery  they  had  become 
insensible  to  the  bite  of  the  lash  or  the  bruise 
of  the  club.  The  pain  of  the  beating  was 
dull  and  distant,  just  as  the  things  their  eyes 
saw  and  their  ears  heard  seemed  dull  and 
distant.  They  were  not  half  living,  or  quarter 
living.  They  were  simply  so  many  bags  of 
bones  in  which  sparks  of  life  fluttered  faintly. 
When  a  halt  was  made,  they  dropped  down 
in  the  traces  like  dead  dogs,  and  the  spark 
dimmed   and   paled   and   seemed   to   go    out. 


THE   TOIL   OF   TRACE   AND   TRAIL    147 

And  when  the  club  or  whip  fell  upon  them, 
the  spark  fluttered  feebly  up,  and  they  tottered 
to  their  feet  and  staggered  on. 

There  came  a  day  when  Billee,  the  good- 
natured,  fell  and  could  not  rise.  Hal  had 
traded  off  his  revolver,  so  he  took  the  axe 
and  knocked  Billee  on  the  head  as  he  lay 
in  the  traces,  then  cut  the  carcass  out  of  the 
harness  and  dragged  it  to  one  side.  Buck 
saw,  and  his  mates  saw,  and  they  knew  that 
this  thing  was  very  close  to  them.  On  the 
next  day  Koona  went,  and  but  five  of  them 
remained :  Joe,  too  far  gone  to  be  malignant ; 
Pike,  crippled  and  limping,  only  half  conscious 
and  not  conscious  enough  longer  to  malinger; 
Sol-leks,  the  one-eyed,  still  faithful  to  the 
toil  of  trace  and  trail,  and  mournful  in  that 
he  had  so  little  strength  with  which  to  pull ; 
Teek,  who  had  not  travelled  so  far  that  winter 
and  who  was  now  beaten  more  than  the  others 
because  he  was  fresher;  and  Buck,  still  at 
the  head  of  the  team,  but  no  longer  enforcing 
discipline  or  striving  to  enforce  it,  blind  with 
weakness  half  the  time  and  keeping  the  trail 


148   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

by  the  loom  of  it  and  by  the  dim  feel  of  his 
feet. 

It  was  beautiful  spring  weather,  but  neither 
dogs  nor  humans  were  aware  of  it.  Each 
day  the  sun  rose  earlier  and  set  later.  It 
was  dawn  by  three  in  the  morning,  and  twi- 
light lingered  till  nine  at  night.  The  whole 
long  day  was  a  blaze  of  sunshine.  The 
ghostly  winter  silence  had  given  way  to  the 
great  spring  murmur  of  awakening  life.  This 
murmur  arose  from  all  the  land,  fraught  with 
the  joy  of  living.  It  came  from  the  things 
that  lived  and  moved  again,  things  which  had 
been  as  dead  and  which  had  not  moved  during 
the  long  months  of  frost.  The  sap  was  rising 
in  the  pines.  The  willows  and  aspens  were 
bursting  out  in  young  buds.  Shrubs  and 
vines  were  putting  on  fresh  garbs  of  green. 
Crickets  sang  in  the  nights,  and  in  the  days 
all  manner  of  creeping,  crawling  things  rustled 
forth  into  the  sun.  Partridges  and  wood- 
peckers were  booming  and  knocking  in  the 
forest.  Squirrels  were  chattering,  birds  sing- 
ing, and  overhead  honked  the  wild-fowl  driving 


THE   TOIL    OF   TRACE   AND   TRAIL    149 

up  from  the  south  in  cunning  wedges  that 
split  the  air. 

From  every  hill  slope  came  the  trickle  of 
running  water,  the  music  of  unseen  fountains. 
All  things  were  thawing,  bending,  snapping. 
The  Yukon  was  straining  to  break  loose  the 
ice  that  bound  it  down.  It  ate  away  from 
beneath ;  the  sun  ate  from  above.  Air-holes 
formed,  fissures  sprang  and  spread  apart,  while 
thin  sections  of  ice  fell  through  bodily  into 
the  river.  And  amid  all  this  bursting,  rending, 
throbbing  of  awakening  life,  under  the  blazing 
sun  and  through  the  soft-sighing  breezes,  like 
wayfarers  to  death,  staggered  the  two  men,  the 
woman,  and  the  huskies. 

With  the  dogs  falling,  Mercedes  weeping 
and  riding,  Hal  swearing  innocuously,  and 
Charles's  eyes  wistfully  watering,  they  stag- 
gered into  John  Thornton's  camp  at  the 
mouth  of  White  River.  When  they  halted, 
the  dogs  dropped  down  as  though  they  had 
all  been  struck  dead.  Mercedes  dried  her 
eyes  and  looked  at  John  Thornton.  Charles 
sat  down  on  a  log  to  rest.     He  sat  down  very 


150   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

slowly  and  painstakingly  what  of  his  great 
stiffness.  Hal  did  the  talking.  John  Thorn- 
ton was  whittling  the  last  touches  on  an  axe- 
handle  he  had  made  from  a  stick  of  birch. 
He  whittled  and  listened,  gave  monosyllabic 
replies,  and,  when  it  was  asked,  terse  advice. 
He  knew  the  breed,  and  he  gave  his  advice 
in  the  certainty  that  it  would  not  be  fol- 
lowed. 

"  They  told  us  up  above  that  the  bottom 
was  dropping  out  of  the  trail  and  that  the  best 
thing  for  us  to  do  was  to  lay  over,"  Hal  said 
in  response  to  Thornton's  warning  to  take  no 
more  chances  on  the  rotten  ice.  "  They  told 
us  we  couldn't  make  White  River,  and  here 
we  are."  This  last  with  a  sneering  ring  of  tri- 
umph in  it. 

"  And  they  told  you  true,"  John  Thornton 
answered.  "The  bottom's  likely  to  drop  out 
at  any  moment.  Only  fools,  with  the  blind 
luck  of  fools,  could  have  made  it.  I  tell  you 
straight,  I  wouldn't  risk  my  carcass  on  that  ice 
for  all  the  gold  in  Alaska." 

"  That's  because  you're  not  a  fool,  I   sup- 


THE   TOIL    OF   TRACE   AND    TRAIL    151 

pose,"  said  Hal.  "All  the  same,  we'll  go  on 
to  Dawson."  He  uncoiled  his  whip.  "  Get  up 
there,  Buck  !    Hi !    Get  up  there  !    Mush  on  ! " 

Thornton  went  on  whittling.  It  was  idle, 
he  knew,  to  get  between  a  fool  and  his  folly ; 
while  two  or  three  fools  more  or  less  would 
not  alter  the  scheme  of  things. 

But  the  team  did  not  get  up  at  the  com- 
mand. It  had  long  since  passed  into  the  stage 
where  blows  were  required  to  rouse  it.  The 
whip  flashed  out,  here  and  there,  on  its  merci- 
less errands.  John  Thornton  compressed  his 
lips.  Sol-leks  was  the  first  to  crawl  to  his 
feet.  Teek  followed.  Joe  came  next,  yelping 
with  pain.  Pike  made  painful  efforts.  Twice 
he  fell  over,  when  half  up,  and  on  the  third 
attempt  managed  to  rise.  Buck  made  no 
effort.  He  lay  quietly  where  he  had  fallen. 
The  lash  bit  into  him  again  and  again,  but  he 
neither  whined  nor  struggled.  Several  times 
Thornton  started,  as  though  to  speak,  but 
changed  his  mind.  A  moisture  came  into  his 
eyes,  and,  as  the  whipping  continued,  he  arose 
and  walked  irresolutely  up  and  down. 


152       THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

This  was  the  first  time  Buck  had  failed,  in 
itself  a  sufficient  reason  to  drive  Hal  into  a 
rage.  He  exchanged  the  whip  for  the  custom- 
ary club.  Buck  refused  to  move  under  the 
rain  of  heavier  blows  which  now  fell  upon  him. 
Like  his  mates,  he  was  barely  able  to  get  up, 
but,  unlike  them,  he  had  made  up  his  mind 
not  to  get  up.  He  had  a  vague  feeling  of  im- 
pending doom.  This  had  been  strong  upon 
him  when  he  pulled  in  to  the  bank,  and  it  had 
not  departed  from  him.  What  of  the  thin  and 
rotten  ice  he  had  felt  under  his  feet  all  day,  it 
seemed  that  he  sensed  disaster  close  at  hand, 
out  there  ahead  on  the  ice  where  his  master 
was  trying  to  drive  him.  He  refused  to  stir. 
So  greatly  had  he  suffered,  and  so  far  gone  was 
he,  that  the  blows  did  not  hurt  much.  And 
as  they  continued  to  fall  upon  him,  the  spark 
of  life  within  flickered  and  went  down.  It 
was  nearly  out.  He  felt  strangely  numb.  As 
though  from  a  great  distance,  he  was  aware 
that  he  was  being  beaten.  The  last  sensations 
of  pain  left  him.  He  no  longer  felt  anything, 
though  very  faintly  he  could  hear  the  impact 


THE  TOIL  OF  TRACE   AND  TRAIL     153 

of  the  club  upon  his  body.  But  it  was  no 
longer  his  body,  it  seemed  so  far  away. 

And  then,  suddenly,  without  warning,  utter- 
ing a  cry  that  was  inarticulate  and  more  like 
the  cry  of  an  animal,  John  Thornton  sprang 
upon  the  man  who  wielded  the  club.  Hal  was 
hurled  backward,  as  though  struck  by  a  falling 
tree.  Mercedes  screamed.  Charles  looked  on 
wistfully,  wiped  his  watery  eyes,  but  did  not 
get  up  because  of  his  stiffness. 

John  Thornton  stood  over  Buck,  struggling 
to  control  himself,  too  convulsed  with  rage  to 
speak. 

"If  you  strike  that  dog  again,  I'll  kill  you," 
he  at  last  managed  to  say  in  a  choking 
voice. 

"  It's  my  dog,"  Hal  replied,  wiping  the 
blood  from  his  mouth  as  he  came  back.  "  Get 
out  of  my  way,  or  I'll  fix  you.  I'm  going  to 
Dawson." 

Thornton  stood  between  him  and  Buck,  and 
evinced  no  intention  of  getting  out  of  the 
way.  Hal  drew  his  long  hunting-knife. 
Mercedes  screamed,  cried,  laughed,  and  mani- 


i54   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

fested  the  chaotic  abandonment  of  hysteria. 
Thornton  rapped  Hal's  knuckles  with  the  axe- 
handle,  knocking  the  knife  to  the  ground.  He 
rapped  his  knuckles  again  as  he  tried  to  pick 
it  up.  Then  he  stooped,  picked  it  up  him- 
self, and  with  two  strokes  cut  Buck's  traces. 

Hal  had  no  fight  left  in  him.  Besides,  his 
hands  were  full  with  his  sister,  or  his  arms, 
rather;  while  Buck  was  too  near  dead  to  be 
of  further  use  in  hauling  the  sled.  A  few 
minutes  later  they  pulled  out  from  the  bank 
and  down  the  river.  Buck  heard  them  go  and 
raised  his  head  to  see.  Pike  was  leading, 
Sol-leks  was  at  the  wheel,  and  between  were 
Joe  and  Teek.  They  were  limping  and  stag- 
gering. Mercedes  was  riding  the  loaded  sled. 
Hal  guided  at  the  gee-pole,  and  Charles  stum- 
bled along  in  the  rear. 

As  Buck  watched  them,  Thornton  knelt 
beside  him  and  with  rough,  kindly  hands 
searched  for  broken  bones.  By  the  time  his 
search  had  disclosed  nothing  more  than  many 
bruises  and  a  state  of  terrible  starvation,  the 
sled  was  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away.     Dog  and 


"John  Thornton  and  Buck  looked  at  each  other." 


THE   TOIL   OF  TRACE   AND   TRAIL    157 

man  watched  it  crawling  along  over  the  ice. 
Suddenly,  they  saw  its  back  end  drop  down, 
as  into  a  rut,  and  the  gee-pole,  with  Hal  cling- 
ing to  it,  jerk  into  the  air.  Mercedes's  scream 
came  to  their  ears.  They  saw  Charles  turn 
and  make  one  step  to  run  back,  and  then  a 
whole  section  of  ice  give  way  and  dogs  and 
humans  disappear.  A  yawning  hole  was  all 
that  was  to  be  seen.  The  bottom  had  dropped 
out  of  the  trail. 

John  Thornton  and  Buck  looked  at  each 
other. 

"You  poor  devil,"  said  John  Thornton, 
and  Buck  licked  his  hand. 


VI 
FOR   THE   LOVE   OF   A   MAN 


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B.Y;  TKE    .RIVER;:  BANK: 


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VI 

For  the  Love  of  a  Man 

WHEN  John  Thornton  froze  his  feet 
in  the  previous  December,  his  part- 
ners had  made  him  comfortable  and 
left  him  to  get  well,  going  on  themselves  up 
the  river  to  get  out  a  raft  of  saw-logs  for 
Dawson.  He  was  still  limping  slightly  at 
the  time  he  rescued  Buck,  but  with  the  con- 
tinued warm  weather  even  the  slight  limp  left 
him.  And  here,  lying  by  the  river  bank 
through  the  long  spring  days,  watching  the  run- 
ning water,  listening  lazily  to  the  songs  of  birds 
and  the  hum  of  nature,  Buck  slowly  won  back 
his  strength. 

A  rest  comes  very  good  after  one  has 
travelled  three  thousand  miles,  and  it  must 
be  confessed  that  Buck  waxed  lazy  as  his 
wounds  healed,  his   muscles  swelled  out,  and 

L  161 


162        THE   CALL   OF   THE  WILD 

the  flesh  came  back  to  cover  his  bones.  For 
that  matter,  they  were  all  loafing, —  Buck, 
John  Thornton,  and  Skeet  and  Nig,  —  waiting 
for  the  raft  to  come  that  was  to  carry  them 
down  to  Dawson.  Skeet  was  a  little  Irish 
setter  who  early  made  friends  with  Buck,  who, 
in  a  dying  condition,  was  unable  to  resent  her 
first  advances.  She  had  the  doctor  trait  which 
some  dogs  possess  ;  and  as  a  mother  cat  washes 
her  kittens,  so  she  washed  and  cleansed  Buck's 
wounds.  Regularly,  each  morning  after  he 
had  finished  his  breakfast,  she  performed  her 
self-appointed  task,  till  he  came  to  look  for  her 
ministrations  as  much  as  he  did  for  Thorn- 
ton's. Nig,  equally  friendly,  though  less 
demonstrative,  was  a  huge  black  dog,  half 
bloodhound  and  half  deerhound,  with  eyes 
that  laughed  and  a  boundless  good  nature. 

To  Buck's  surprise  these  dogs  manifested 
no  jealousy  toward  him.  They  seemed  to 
share  the  kindliness  and  largeness  of  John 
Thornton.  As  Buck  grew  stronger  they 
enticed  him  into  all  sorts  of  ridiculous  games, 
in  which  Thornton  himself  could  not  forbear 


FOR  THE   LOVE   OF   A   MAN       163 

to  join ;  and  in  this  fashion  Buck  romped 
through  his  convalescence  and  into  a  new 
existence.  Love,  genuine  passionate  love,  was 
his  for  the  first  time.  This  he  had  never 
experienced  at  Judge  Miller's  down  in  the 
sun-kissed  Santa  Clara  Valley.  With  the 
Judge's  sons,  hunting  and  tramping,  it  had 
been  a  working  partnership ;  with  the  Judge's 
grandsons,  a  sort  of  pompous  guardianship ; 
and  with  the  Judge  himself,  a  stately  and  dig- 
nified friendship.  But  love  that  was  feverish 
and  burning,  that  was  adoration,  that  was  mad- 
ness, it  had  taken  John  Thornton  to  arouse. 

This  man  had  saved  his  life,  which  was 
something ;  but,  further,  he  was  the  ideal 
master.  Other  men  saw  to  the  welfare  of 
their  dogs  from  a  sense  of  duty  and  business 
expediency ;  he  saw  to  the  welfare  of  his  as  if 
they  were  his  own  children,  because  he  could 
not  help  it.  And  he  saw  further.  He  never 
forgot  a  kindly  greeting  or  a  cheering  word, 
and  to  sit  down  for  a  long  talk  with  them 
("gas"  he  called  it)  was  as  much  his  delight 
as  theirs.     He  had  a  way  of  taking  Buck's 


1 64        THE   CALL   OF   THE  WILD 

head  roughly  between  his  hands,  and  resting 
his  own  head  upon  Buck's,  of  shaking  him 
back  and  forth,  the  while  calling  him  ill  names 
that  to  Buck  were  love  names.  Buck  knew  no 
greater  joy  than  that  rough  embrace  and  the 
sound  of  murmured  oaths,  and  at  each  jerk 
back  and  forth  it  seemed  that  his  heart  would 
be  shaken  out  of  his  body  so  great  was  its 
ecstasy.  And  when,  released,  he  sprang  to  his 
feet,  his  mouth  laughing,  his  eyes  eloquent,  his 
throat  vibrant  with  unuttered  sound,  and  in 
that  fashion  remained  without  movement,  John 
Thornton  would  reverently  exclaim,  "  God ! 
you  can  all  but  speak  ! " 

Buck  had  a  trick  of  love  expression  that  was 
akin  to  hurt.  He  would  often  seize  Thornton's 
hand  in  his  mouth  and  close  so  fiercely  that 
the  flesh  bore  the  impress  of  his  teeth  for  some 
time  afterward.  And  as  Buck  understood  the 
oaths  to  be  love  words,  so  the  man  understood 
this  feigned  bite  for  a  caress. 

For  the  most  part,  however,  Buck's  love 
was  expressed  in  adoration.  While  he  went 
wild  with   happiness  when  Thornton  touched 


FOR  THE   LOVE   OF   A   MAN      165 

him  or  spoke  to  him,  he  did  not  seek  these 
tokens.  Unlike  Skeet,  who  was  wont  to 
shove  her  nose  under  Thornton's  hand  and 
nudge  and  nudge  till  petted,  or  Nig,  who 
would  stalk  up  and  rest  his  great  head  on 
Thornton's  knee,  Buck  was  content  to  adore 
at  a  distance.  He  would  lie  by  the  hour, 
eager,  alert,  at  Thornton's  feet,  looking  up 
into  his  face,  dwelling  upon  it,  studying  it, 
following  with  keenest  interest  each  fleeting 
expression,  every  movement  or  change  of  fea- 
ture. Or,  as  chance  might  have  it,  he  would 
lie  farther  away,  to  the  side  or  rear,  watching 
the  outlines  of  the  man  and  the  occasional 
movements  of  his  body.  And  often,  such  was 
the  communion  in  which  they  lived,  the 
strength  of  Buck's  gaze  would  draw  John 
Thornton's  head  around,  and  he  would  return 
the  gaze,  without  speech,  his  heart  shining  out 
of  his  eyes  as  Buck's  heart  shone  out. 

For  a  long  time  after  his  rescue,  Buck  did 
not  like  Thornton  to  get  out  of  his  sight. 
From  the  moment  he  left  the  tent  to  when  he 
entered  it   again,    Buck   would   follow   at   his 


166   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

heels.  His  transient  masters  since  he  had 
come  into  the  Northland  had  bred  in  him  a 
fear  that  no  master  could  be  permanent.  He 
was  afraid  that  Thornton  would  pass  out  of  his 
life  as  Perrault  and  Francois  and  the  Scotch 
half-breed  had  passed  out.  Even  in  the  night, 
in  his  dreams,  he  was  haunted  by  this  fear. 
At  such  times  he  would  shake  off  sleep  and 
creep  through  the  chill  to  the  flap  of  the  tent, 
where  he  would  stand  and  listen  to  the  sound 
of  his  master's  breathing. 

But  in  spite  of  this  great  love  he  bore  John 
Thornton,  which  seemed  to  bespeak  the  soft 
civilizing  influence,  the  strain  of  the  primitive, 
which  the  Northland  had  aroused  in  him, 
remained  alive  and  active.  Faithfulness  and 
devotion,  things  born  of  fire  and  roof,  were  his  ; 
yet  he  retained  his  wildness  and  wiliness.  He 
was  a  thing  of  the  wild,  come  in  from  the  wild 
to  sit  by  John  Thornton's  fire,  rather  than  a 
dog  of  the  soft  Southland  stamped  with  the 
marks  of  generations  of  civilization.  Because 
of  his  very  great  love,  he  could  not  steal  from 
this   man,    but   from    any  other   man,   in  any 


FOR  THE   LOVE   OF  A   MAN      167 

other  camp,  he  did  not  hesitate  an  instant; 
while  the  cunning  with  which  he  stole  enabled 
him  to  escape  detection. 

His  face  and  body  were  scored  by  the  teeth 
of  many  dogs,  and  he  fought  as  fiercely  as  ever 
and  more  shrewdly.  Skeet  and  Nig  were  too 
good-natured  for  quarrelling,  —  besides,  they 
belonged  to  John  Thornton ;  but  the  strange 
dog,  no  matter  what  the  breed  or  valor,  swiftly 
acknowledged  Buck's  supremacy  or  found  him- 
self struggling  for  life  with  a  terrible  antagonist. 
And  Buck  was  merciless.  He  had  learned 
well  the  law  of  club  and  fang,  and  he  never 
forewent  an  advantage  or  drew  back  from  a 
foe  he  had  started  on  the  way  to  Death.  He 
had  lessoned  from  Spitz,  and  from  the  chief 
fighting  dogs  of  the  police  and  mail,  and  knew 
there  was  no  middle  course.  He  must  master 
or  be  mastered;  while  to  show  mercy  was  a  weak- 
ness. Mercy  did  not  exist  in  the  primordial  life. 
It  was  misunderstood  for  fear,  and  such  misun- 
derstandings made  for  death.  Kill  or  be  killed, 
eat  or  be  eaten,  was  the  law ;  and  this  mandate, 
down  out  of  the  depths  of  Time,  he  obeyed. 


168        THE   CALL   OF  THE   WILD 

He  was  older  than  the  days  he  had  seen 
and  the  breaths  he  had  drawn.  He  linked  the 
past  with  the  present,  and  the  eternity  behind 
him  throbbed  through  him  in  a  mighty  rhythm 
to  which  he  swayed  as  the  tides  and  seasons 
swayed.  He  sat  by  John  Thornton's  fire,  a 
broad-breasted  dog,  white-fanged  and  long- 
furred  ;  but  behind  him  were  the  shades  of  all 
manner  of  dogs,  half-wolves  and  wild  wolves, 
urgent  and  prompting,  tasting  the  savor  of  the 
meat  he  ate,  thirsting  for  the  water  he  drank, 
scenting  the  wind  with  him,  listening  with  him 
and  telling  him  the  sounds  made  by  the  wild 
life  in  the  forest,  dictating  his  moods,  directing 
his  actions,  lying  down  to  sleep  with  him  when 
he  lay  down,  and  dreaming  with  him  and  be- 
yond him  and  becoming  themselves  the  stuff 
of  his  dreams. 

So  peremptorily  did  these  shades  beckon 
him,  that  each  day  mankind  and  the  claims  of 
mankind  slipped  farther  from  him.  Deep  in 
the  forest  a  call  was  sounding,  and  as  often  as 
he  heard  this  call,  mysteriously  thrilling  and 
luring,  he  felt  compelled  to  turn  his  back  upon 


FOR  THE   LOVE   OF   A   MAN       171 

the  fire  and  the  beaten  earth  around  it,  and  to 
plunge  into  the  forest,  and  on  and  on,  he  knew 
not  where  or  why ;  nor  did  he  wonder  where  or 
why,  the  call  sounding  imperiously,  deep  in 
the  forest.  But  as  often  as  he  gained  the  soft 
unbroken  earth  and  the  green  shade,  the  love 
for  John  Thornton  drew  him  back  to  the  fire 
again. 

Thornton  alone  held  him.  The  rest  of 
mankind  was  as  nothing.  Chance  travellers 
might  praise  or  pet  him  ;  but  he  was  cold  under 
it  all,  and  from  a  too  demonstrative  man  he 
would  get  up  and  walk  away.  When  Thorn- 
ton's partners,  Hans  and  Pete,  arrived  on  the 
long-expected  raft,  Buck  refused  to  notice 
them  till  he  learned  they  were  close  to  Thorn- 
ton ;  after  that  he  tolerated  them  in  a  passive 
sort  of  way,  accepting  favors  from  them  as 
though  he  favored  them  by  accepting.  They 
were  of  the  same  large  type  as  Thornton,  liv- 
ing close  to  the  earth,  thinking  simply  and 
seeing  clearly ;  and  ere  they  swung  the  raft 
into  the  big  eddy  by  the  saw-mill  at  Dawson, 
they  understood   Buck  and  his  ways,  and  did 


172   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

not  insist  upon  an  intimacy  such  as  obtained 
with  Skeet  and  Nig. 

For  Thornton,  however,  his  love  seemed  to 
grow  and  grow.  He,  alone  among  men,  could 
put  a  pack  upon  Buck's  back  in  the  summer 
travelling.  Nothing  was  too  great  for  Buck  to 
do,  when  Thornton  commanded.  One  day 
(they  had  grub-staked  themselves  from  the 
proceeds  of  the  raft  and  left  Dawson  for  the 
head-waters  of  the  Tanana)  the  men  and  dogs 
were  sitting  on  the  crest  of  a  cliff  which  fell 
away,  straight  down,  to  naked  bed-rock  three 
hundred  feet  below.  John  Thornton  was  sit- 
ting near  the  edge,  Buck  at  his  shoulder.  A 
thoughtless  whim  seized  Thornton,  and  he 
drew  the  attention  of  Hans  and  Pete  to  the 
experiment  he  had  in  mind.  "  Jump,  Buck  ! " 
he  commanded,  sweeping  his  arm  out  and  over 
the  chasm.  The  next  instant  he  was  grappling 
with  Buck  on  the  extreme  edge,  while  Hans 
and  Pete  were  dragging  them  back  into  safety. 

"  It's  uncanny,"  Pete  said,  after  it  was  over 
and  they  had  caught  their  speech. 

Thornton    shook   his   head.       "  No,   it   is 


FOR   THE   LOVE   OF   A    MAN       173 

splendid,  and  it  is  terrible,  too.  Do  you 
know,  it  sometimes  makes  me  afraid." 

"  I'm  not  hankering  to  be  the  man  that  lays 
hands  on  you  while  he's  around,"  Pete  an- 
nounced conclusively,  nodding  his  head  toward 
Buck. 

"  Py  Jingo !  "  was  Hans's  contribution. 
"  Not   mineself  either." 

It  was  at  Circle  City,  ere  the  year  was  out, 
that  Pete's  apprehensions  were  realized. 
"Black"  Burton,  a  man  evil  -  tempered  and 
malicious,  had  been  picking  a  quarrel  with  a 
tenderfoot  at  the  bar,  when  Thornton  stepped 
good-naturedly  between.  Buck,  as  was  his 
custom,  was  lying  in  a  corner,  head  on  paws, 
watching  his  master's  every  action.  Burton 
struck  out,  without  warning,  straight  from 
the  shoulder.  Thornton  was  sent  spinning, 
and  saved  himself  from  falling  only  by  clutch- 
ing the  rail  of  the  bar. 

Those  who  were  looking  on  heard  what  was 
neither  bark  nor  yelp,  but  a  something  which 
is  best  described  as  a  roar,  and  they  saw  Buck's 
body  rise  up  in  the  air  as  he  left  the  floor  for 


174        THE   CALL   OF   THE  WILD 

Burton's  throat.  The  man  saved  his  life  by 
instinctively  throwing  out  his  arm,  but  was 
hurled  backward  to  the  floor  with  Buck  on  top 
of  him.  Buck  loosed  his  teeth  from  the  flesh 
of  the  arm  and  drove  in  again  for  the  throat. 
This  time  the  man  succeeded  only  in  partly 
blocking,  and  his  throat  was  torn  open.  Then 
the  crowd  was  upon  Buck,  and  he  was  driven 
off;  but  while  a  surgeon  checked  the  bleeding, 
he  prowled  up  and  down,  growling  furiously, 
attempting  to  rush  in,  and  being  forced  back  by 
an  array  of  hostile  clubs.  A  "miners'  meet- 
ing," called  on  the  spot,  decided  that  the  dog 
had  sufficient  provocation,  and  Buck  was  dis- 
charged. But  his  reputation  was  made,  and 
from  that  day  his  name  spread  through  every 
camp  in  Alaska. 

Later  on,  in  the  fall  of  the  year,  he  saved 
John  Thornton's  life  in  quite  another  fashion. 
The  three  partners  were  lining  a  long  and 
narrow  poling-boat  down  a  bad  stretch  of 
rapids  on  the  Forty-Mile  Creek.  Hans  and 
Pete  moved  along  the  bank,  snubbing  with  a 
thin    Manila    rope    from    tree    to    tree,   while 


FOR  THE    LOVE   OF   A    MAN       175 

Thornton  remained  in  the  boat,  helping  its 
descent  by  means  of  a  pole,  and  shouting 
directions  to  the  shore.  Buck,  on  the  bank, 
worried  and  anxious,  kept  abreast  of  the  boat, 
his  eyes  never  off  his  master. 

At  a  particularly  bad  spot,  where  a  ledge  of 
barely  submerged  rocks  jutted  out  into  the 
river,  Hans  cast  off  the  rope,  and,  while 
Thornton  poled  the  boat  out  into  the  stream, 
ran  down  the  bank  with  the  end  in  his  hand 
to  snub  the  boat  when  it  had  cleared  the  ledge. 
This  it  did,  and  was  flying  down-stream  in  a 
current  as  swift  as  a  mill-race,  when  Hans 
checked  it  with  the  rope  and  checked  too  sud- 
denly. The  boat  flirted  over  and  snubbed  in 
to  the  bank  bottom  up,  while  Thornton,  flung 
sheer  out  of  it,  was  carried  down-stream  toward 
the  worst  part  of  the  rapids,  a  stretch  of  wild 
water  in  which  no  swimmer  could  live. 

Buck  had  sprung  in  on  the  instant ;  and  at 
the  end  of  three  hundred  yards,  amid  a  mad 
swirl  of  water,  he  overhauled  Thornton.  When 
he  felt  him  grasp  his  tail,  Buck  headed  for  the 
bank,  swimming  with  all  his  splendid  strength. 


176   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

But  the  progress  shoreward  was  slow;  the 
progress  down-stream  amazingly  rapid.  From 
below  came  the  fatal  roaring  where  the  wild 
current  went  wilder  and  was  rent  in  shreds  and 
spray  by  the  rocks  which  thrust  through  like 
the  teeth  of  an  enormous  comb.  The  suck 
of  the  water  as  it  took  the  beginning  of  the 
last  steep  pitch  was  frightful,  and  Thornton 
knew  that  the  shore  was  impossible.  He 
scraped  furiously  over  a  rock,  bruised  across  a 
second,  and  struck  a  third  with  crushing  force. 
He  clutched  its  slippery  top  with  both  hands, 
releasing  Buck,  and  above  the  roar  of  the 
churning  water  shouted :  "  Go,  Buck  !  Go  !  " 
Buck  could  not  hold  his  own,  and  swept 
on  down-stream,  struggling  desperately,  but 
unable  to  win  back.  When  he  heard  Thorn- 
ton's command  repeated,  he  partly  reared  out 
of  the  water,  throwing  his  head  high,  as 
though  for  a  last  look,  then  turned  obediently 
toward  the  bank.  He  swam  powerfully  and 
was  dragged  ashore  by  Pete  and  Hans  at  the 
very  point  where  swimming  ceased  to  be  pos- 
sible and  destruction  began. 


FOR  THE   LOVE   OF  A   MAN       177 

They  knew  that  the  time  a  man  could  cling 
to  a  slippery  rock  in  the  face  of  that  driving 
current  was  a  matter  of  minutes,  and  they  ran 
as  fast  as  they  could  up  the  bank  to  a  point 
far  above  where  Thornton  was  hanging  on. 
They  attached  the  line  with  which  they  had 
been  snubbing  the  boat  to  Buck's  neck  and 
shoulders,  being  careful  that  it  should  neither 
strangle  him  nor  impede  his  swimming,  and 
launched  him  into  the  stream.  He  struck  out 
boldly,  but  not  straight  enough  into  the 
stream.  He  discovered  the  mistake  too  late, 
when  Thornton  was  abreast  of  him  and  a  bare 
half-dozen  strokes  away  while  he  was  being 
carried  helplessly  past. 

Hans  promptly  snubbed  with  the  rope,  as 
though  Buck  were  a  boat.  The  rope  thus 
tightening  on  him  in  the  sweep  of  the  current, 
he  was  jerked  under  the  surface,  and  under  the 
surface  he  remained  till  his  body  struck  against 
the  bank  and  he  was  hauled  out.  He  was  half 
drowned,  and  Hans  and  Pete  threw  them- 
selves upon  him,  pounding  the  breath  into 
him  and  the  water  out  of  him.     He  staggered 


178   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

to  his  feet  and  fell  down.  The  faint  sound  of 
Thornton's  voice  came  to  them,  and  though 
they  could  not  make  out  the  words  of  it,  they 
knew  that  he  was  in  his  extremity.  His  mas- 
ter's voice  acted  on  Buck  like  an  electric  shock. 
He  sprang  to  his  feet  and  ran  up  the  bank 
ahead  of  the  men  to  the  point  of  his  previous 
departure. 

Again  the  rope  was  attached  and  he  was 
launched,  and  again  he  struck  out,  but  this 
time  straight  into  the  stream.  He  had  mis- 
calculated once,  but  he  would  not  be  guilty  of 
it  a  second  time.  Hans  paid  out  the  rope, 
permitting  no  slack,  while  Pete  kept  it  clear 
of  coils.  Buck  held  on  till  he  was  on  a  line 
straight  above  Thornton ;  then  he  turned, 
and  with  the  speed  of  an  express  train  headed 
down  upon  him.  Thornton  saw  him  com- 
ing, and,  as  Buck  struck  him  like  a  battering 
ram,  with  the  whole  force  of  the  current  be- 
hind him,  he  reached  up  and  closed  with  both 
arms  around  the  shaggy  neck.  Hans  snubbed 
the  rope  around  the  tree,  and  Buck  and 
Thornton     were    jerked     under    the     water. 


FOR  THE   LOVE   OF  A   MAN      179 

Strangling,  suffocating,  sometimes  one  upper- 
most and  sometimes  the  other,  dragging  over 
the  jagged  bottom,  smashing  against  rocks  and 
snags,  they  veered  in  to  the  bank. 

Thornton  came  to,  belly  downward  and 
being  violently  propelled  back  and  forth  across 
a  drift  log  by  Hans  and  Pete.  His  first  glance 
was  for  Buck,  over  whose  limp  and  apparently 
lifeless  body  Nig  was  setting  up  a  howl,  while 
Skeet  was  licking  the  wet  face  and  closed  eyes. 
Thornton  was  himself  bruised  and  battered, 
and  he  went  carefully  over  Buck's  body,  when 
he  had  been  brought  around,  finding  three 
broken   ribs. 

"  That  settles  it,"  he  announced.  "  We 
camp  right  here."  And  camp  they  did,  till 
Buck's  ribs  knitted  and  he  was  able  to  travel. 

That  winter,  at  Dawson,  Buck  performed 
another  exploit,  not  so  heroic,  perhaps,  but 
one  that  put  his  name  many  notches  higher 
on  the  totem-pole  of  Alaskan  fame.  This 
exploit  was  particularly  gratifying  to  the  three 
men ;  for  they  stood  in  need  of  the  outfit 
which  it  furnished,  and  were  enabled  to  make 


180        THE    CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

a  long-desired  trip  into  the  virgin  East,  where 
miners  had  not  yet  appeared.  It  was  brought 
about  by  a  conversation  in  the  Eldorado 
Saloon,  in  which  men  waxed  boastful  of  their 
favorite  dogs.  Buck,  because  of  his  record, 
was  the  target  for  these  men,  and  Thornton 
was  driven  stoutly  to  defend  him.  At  the 
end  of  half  an  hour  one  man  stated  that  his 
dog  could  start  a  sled  with  five  hundred 
pounds  and  walk  off  with  it ;  a  second 
bragged  six  hundred  for  his  dog ;  and  a  third, 
seven  hundred. 

"  Pooh  !  pooh  !  "  said  John  Thornton  ; 
"  Buck  can  start  a  thousand  pounds." 

"  And  break  it  out  ?  and  walk  off  with  it 
for  a  hundred  yards  ? "  demanded  Matthewson, 
a  Bonanza  King,  he  of  the  seven  hundred 
vaunt. 

"  And  break  it  out,  and  walk  off  with  it 
for  a  hundred  yards,"  John  Thornton  said 
coolly. 

"Well,"  Matthewson  said,  slowly  and  de- 
liberately, so  that  all  could  hear,  "  I've  got  a 
thousand    dollars    that   says    he    can't.       And 


FOR   THE   LOVE   OF   A   MAN      181 

there  it  is."  So  saying,  he  slammed  a  sack 
of  gold  dust  of  the  size  of  a  bologna  sausage 
down  upon  the  bar. 

Nobody  spoke.  Thornton's  bluff,  if  bluff 
it  was,  had  been  called.  He  could  feel  a  flush 
of  warm  blood  creeping  up  his  face.  His 
tongue  had  tricked  him.  He  did  not  know 
whether  Buck  could  start  a  thousand  pounds. 
Half  a  ton !  The  enormousness  of  it  appalled 
him.  He  had  great  faith  in  Buck's  strength 
and  had  often  thought  him  capable  of  starting 
such  a  load ;  but  never,  as  now,  had  he  faced 
the  possibility  of  it,  the  eyes  of  a  dozen  men 
fixed  upon  him,  silent  and  waiting.  Further, 
he  had  no  thousand  dollars ;  nor  had  Hans 
or  Pete. 

"  I've  got  a  sled  standing  outside  now,  with 
twenty  fifty-pound  sacks  of  flour  on  it," 
Matthewson  went  on  with  brutal  directness ; 
"  so  don't  let  that  hinder  you." 

Thornton  did  not  reply.  He  did  not  know 
what  to  say.  He  glanced  from  face  to  face 
in  the  absent  way  of  a  man  who  has  lost  the 
power  of  thought  and  is   seeking  somewhere 


1 82        THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

to  find  the  thing  that  will  start  it  going  again. 
The  face  of  Jim  O'Brien,  a  Mastodon  King 
and  old-time  comrade,  caught  his  eyes.  It 
was  as  a  cue  to  him,  seeming  to  rouse  him 
to  do  what  he  would  never  have  dreamed  of 
doing. 

"  Can  you  lend  me  a  thousand  ? "  he  asked, 
almost  in  a  whisper. 

"  Sure,"  answered  O'Brien,  thumping  down 
a  plethoric  sack  by  the  side  of  Matthewson's. 
"Though  it's  little  faith  I'm  having,  John, 
that  the  beast  can  do  the  trick." 

The  Eldorado  emptied  its  occupants  into 
the  street  to  see  the  test.  The  tables  were 
deserted,  and  the  dealers  and  gamekeepers 
came  forth  to  see  the  outcome  of  the  wager 
and  to  lay  odds.  Several  hundred  men, 
furred  and  mittened,  banked  around  the  sled 
within  easy  distance.  Matthewson's  sled, 
loaded  with  a  thousand  pounds  of  flour,  had 
been  standing  for  a  couple  of  hours,  and  in 
the  intense  cold  (it  was  sixty  below  zero)  the 
runners  had  frozen  fast  to  the  hard-packed 
snow.     Men  offered  odds  of  two  to  one  that 


FOR   THE   LOVE   OF   A   MAN      183 

Buck  could  not  budge  the  sled.  A  quibble 
arose  concerning  the  phrase  "  break  out." 
O'Brien  contended  it  was  Thornton's  privilege 
to  knock  the  runners  loose,  leaving  Buck  to 
"  break  it  out "  from  a  dead  standstill.  Mat- 
thewson  insisted  that  the  phrase  included 
breaking  the  runners  from  the  frozen  grip  of 
the  snow.  A  majority  of  the  men  who  had 
witnessed  the  making  of  the  bet  decided  in 
his  favor,  whereat  the  odds  went  up  to  three 
to  one  against  Buck. 

There  were  no  takers.  Not  a  man  believed 
him  capable  of  the  feat.  Thornton  had  been 
hurried  into  the  wager,  heavy  with  doubt ; 
and  now  that  he  looked  at  the  sled  itself,  the 
concrete  fact,  with  the  regular  team  of  ten 
dogs  curled  up  in  the  snow  before  it,  the 
more  impossible  the  task  appeared.  Mat- 
thewson  waxed  jubilant. 

"  Three  to  one  !  "  he  proclaimed.  "  I'll 
lay  you  another  thousand  at  that  figure, 
Thornton.     What  d'ye  say  ?  " 

Thornton's  doubt  was  strong  in  his  face, 
but    his    fighting     spirit    was     aroused  —  the 


1 84        THE   CALL    OF   THE   WILD 

fighting  spirit  that  soars  above  odds,  fails  to 
recognize  the  impossible,  and  is  deaf  to  all 
save  the  clamor  for  battle.  He  called  Hans 
and  Pete  to  him.  Their  sacks  were  slim,  and 
with  his  own  the  three  partners  could  rake 
together  only  two  hundred  dollars.  In  the 
ebb  of  their  fortunes,  this  sum  was  their  total 
capital ;  yet  they  laid  it  unhesitatingly  against 
Matthewson's  six  hundred. 

The  team  of  ten  dogs  was  unhitched,  and 
Buck,  with  his  own  harness,  was  put  into 
the  sled.  He  had  caught  the  contagion  of 
the  excitement,  and  he  felt  that  in  some  way 
he  must  do  a  great  thing  for  John  Thornton. 
Murmurs  of  admiration  at  his  splendid  ap- 
pearance went  up.  He  was  in  perfect  condi- 
tion, without  an  ounce  of  superfluous  flesh, 
and  the  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  that 
he  weighed  were  so  many  pounds  of  grit  and 
virility.  His  furry  coat  shone  with  the  sheen 
of  silk.  Down  the  neck  and  across  the 
shoulders,  his  mane,  in  repose  as  it  was, 
half  bristled  and  seemed  to  lift  with  every 
movement,  as    though  excess   of  vigor  made 


FOR   THE   LOVE   OF  A   MAN      185 

each  particular  hair  alive  and  active.  The 
great  breast  and  heavy  fore  legs  were  no  more 
than  in  proportion  with  the  rest  of  the  body, 
where  the  muscles  showed  in  tight  rolls  under- 
neath the  skin.  Men  felt  these  muscles  and 
proclaimed  them  hard  as  iron,  and  the  odds 
went  down  to  two  to  one. 

"  Gad,  sir  !  Gad,  sir  !  "  stuttered  a  member 
of  the  latest  dynasty,  a  king  of  the  Skookum 
Benches.  "  I  offer  you  eight  hundred  for 
him,  sir,  before  the  test,  sir;  eight  hundred 
just  as  he  stands." 

Thornton  shook  his  head  and  stepped  to 
Buck's   side. 

"  You  must  stand  off  from  him,"  Matthew- 
son  protested.  "  Free  play  and  plenty  of 
room." 

The  crowd  fell  silent ;  only  could  be  heard 
the  voices  of  the  gamblers  vainly  offering  two 
to  one.  Everybody  acknowledged  Buck  a 
magnificent  animal,  but  twenty  fifty-pound 
sacks  of  flour  bulked  too  large  in  their  eyes 
for  them  to  loosen   their  pouch-strings. 

Thornton  knelt  down  by  Buck's  side.     He 


1 86        THE    CALL    OF   THE   WILD 

took  his  head  in  his  two  hands  and  rested 
cheek  on  cheek.  He  did  not  playfully  shake 
him,  as  was  his  wont,  or  murmur  soft  love 
curses ;  but  he  whispered  in  his  ear.  "  As 
you  love  me,  Buck.  As  you  love  me,"  was 
what  he  whispered.  Buck  whined  with  sup- 
pressed eagerness. 

The  crowd  was  watching  curiously.  The 
affair  was  growing  mysterious.  It  seemed  like 
a  conjuration.  As  Thornton  got  to  his  feet, 
Buck  seized  his  mittened  hand  between  his 
jaws,  pressing  in  with  his  teeth  and  releasing 
slowly,  half-reluctantly.  It  was  the  answer,  in 
terms,  not  of  speech,  but  of  love.  Thornton 
stepped  well  back. 

"  Now,  Buck,"  he  said. 

Buck  tightened  the  traces,  then  slacked 
them  for  a  matter  of  several  inches.  It  was 
the  way  he  had  learned. 

"  Gee !  "  Thornton's  voice  rang  out,  sharp 
in  the  tense  silence. 

Buck  swung  to  the  right,  ending  the  move- 
ment in  a  plunge  that  took  up  the  slack  and 
with  a  sudden  jerk  arrested  his  one  hundred 


FOR   THE   LOVE   OF   A   MAN      187 

and  fifty  pounds.  The  load  quivered,  and 
from  under  the  runners  arose  a  crisp  crackling. 

"  Haw  !  "    Thornton  commanded. 

Buck  duplicated  the  manoeuvre,  this  time  to 
the  left.  The  crackling  turned  into  a  snap- 
ping, the  sled  pivoting  and  the  runners  slip- 
ping and  grating  several  inches  to  the  side. 
The  sled  was  broken  out.  Men  were  hold- 
ing their  breaths,  intensely  unconscious  of  the 
fact. 

"Now,  MUSH!" 

Thornton's  command  cracked  out  like  a 
pistol-shot.  Buck  threw  himself  forward, 
tightening  the  traces  with  a  jarring  lunge. 
His  whole  body  was  gathered  compactly  to- 
gether in  the  tremendous  effort,  the  muscles 
writhing  and  knotting  like  live  things  under 
the  silky  fur.  His  great  chest  was  low  to  the 
ground,  his  head  forward  and  down,  while  his 
feet  were  flying  like  mad,  the  claws  scarring 
the  hard-packed  snow  in  parallel  grooves. 
The  sled  swayed  and  trembled,  half-started 
forward.  One  of  his  feet  slipped,  and  one 
man  groaned  aloud.     Then  the  sled  lurched 


188        THE   CALL   OF   THE  WILD 

ahead  in  what  appeared  a  rapid  succession  of 
jerks,  though  it  never  really  came  to  a  dead 
stop  again  .  .  .  half  an  inch  ...  an  inch  .  .  . 
two  inches.  .  .  .  The  jerks  perceptibly  di- 
minished ;  as  the  sled  gained  momentum,  he 
caught  them  up,  till  it  was  moving  steadily 
along. 

Men  gasped  and  began  to  breathe  again, 
unaware  that  for  a  moment  they  had  ceased 
to  breathe.  Thornton  was  running  behind, 
encouraging  Buck  with  short,  cheery  words. 
The  distance  had  been  measured  off,  and  as  he 
neared  the  pile  of  firewood  which  marked  the 
end  of  the  hundred  yards,  a  cheer  began  to 
grow  and  grow,  which  burst  into  a  roar  as  he 
passed  the  firewood  and  halted  at  command. 
Every  man  was  tearing  himself  loose,  even 
Matthewson.  Hats  and  mittens  were  flying 
in  the  air.  Men  were  shaking  hands,  it  did 
not  matter  with  whom,  and  bubbling  over  in 
a  general  incoherent  babel. 

But  Thornton  fell  on  his  knees  beside  Buck. 
Head  was  against  head,  and  he  was  shaking 
him  back  and  forth.     Those  who  hurried  up 


FOR   THE   LOVE   OF  A   MAN      189 

heard  him  cursing  Buck,  and  he  cursed  him 
long  and  fervently,  and  softly  and  lovingly. 

"  Gad,  sir !  Gad,  sir !  "  spluttered  the 
Skookum  Bench  king.  "  I'll  give  you  a 
thousand  for  him,  sir,  a  thousand,  sir  —  twelve 
hundred,  sir." 

Thornton  rose  to  his  feet.  His  eyes  were 
wet.  The  tears  were  streaming  frankly  down 
his  cheeks.  "  Sir,"  he  said  to  the  Skookum 
Bench  king,  "  no,  sir.  You  can  go  to  hell, 
sir.     It's  the  best  I  can  do  for  you,  sir." 

Buck  seized  Thornton's  hand  in  his  teeth. 
Thornton  shook  him  back  and  forth.  As 
though  animated  by  a  common  impulse,  the 
onlookers  drew  back  to  a  respectful  distance ; 
nor  were  they  again  indiscreet  enough  to 
interrupt. 


VII 
THE   SOUNDING   OF  THE   CALL 


VII 

The  Sounding  of  the  Call 

WHEN  Buck  earned  sixteen  hundred 
dollars  in  five  minutes  for  John 
Thornton,  he  made  it  possible  for 
his  master  to  pay  off  certain  debts  and  to 
journey  with  his  partners  into  the  East  after 
a  fabled  lost  mine,  the  history  of  which  was 
as  old  as  the  history  of  the  country.  Many 
men  had  sought  it ;  few  had  found  it ;  and 
more  than  a  few  there  were  who  had  never  re- 
turned from  the  quest.  This  lost  mine  was 
steeped  in  tragedy  and  shrouded  in  mystery. 
No  one  knew  of  the  first  man.  The  oldest 
tradition  stopped  before  it  got  back  to  him. 
From  the  beginning  there  had  been  an  ancient 
and  ramshackle  cabin.  Dying  men  had  sworn 
to  it,  and  to  the  mine  the  site  of  which  it 
marked,  clinching  their  testimony  with  nuggets 
n  193 


i94        THE   CALL   OF  THE   WILD 

that  were  unlike  any  known  grade  of  gold  in 
the  Northland. 

But  no  living  man  had  looted  this  treasure 
house,  and  the  dead  were  dead ;  wherefore 
John  Thornton  and  Pete  and  Hans,  with 
Buck  and  half  a  dozen  other  dogs,  faced  into 
the  East  on  an  unknown  trail  to  achieve  where 
men  and  dogs  as  good  as  themselves  had 
failed.  They  sledded  seventy  miles  up  the 
Yukon,  swung  to  the  left  into  the  Stewart 
River,  passed  the  Mayo  and  the  McQuestion, 
and  held  on  until  the  Stewart  itself  became 
a  streamlet,  threading  the  upstanding  peaks 
which  marked  the  backbone  of  the  conti- 
nent. 

John  Thornton  asked  little  of  man  or 
nature.  He  was  unafraid  of  the  wild.  With 
a  handful  of  salt  and  a  rifle  he  could  plunge 
into  the  wilderness  and  fare  wherever  he 
pleased  and  as  long  as  he  pleased.  Being 
in  no  haste,  Indian  fashion,  he  hunted 
his  dinner  in  the  course  of  the  day's 
travel ;  and  if  he  failed  to  find  it,  like  the 
Indian,  he  kept  on  travelling,  secure   in   the 


THE   SOUNDING  OF   THE   CALL     195 

knowledge  that  sooner  or  later  he  would  come 
to  it.  So,  on  this  great  journey  into  the 
East,  straight  meat  was  the  bill  of  fare,  am- 
munition and  tools  principally  made  up  the 
load  on  the  sled,  and  the  time-card  was  drawn 
upon  the  limitless  future. 

To  Buck  it  was  boundless  delight,  this 
hunting,  fishing,  and  indefinite  wandering 
through  strange  places.  For  weeks  at  a  time 
they  would  hold  on  steadily,  day  after  day ; 
and  for  weeks  upon  end  they  would  camp, 
here  and  there,  the  dogs  loafing  and  the 
men  burning  holes  through  frozen  muck  and 
gravel  and  washing  countless  pans  of  dirt  by 
the  heat  of  the  fire.  Sometimes  they  went 
hungry,  sometimes  they  feasted  riotously,  all 
according  to  the  abundance  of  game  and  the 
fortune  of  hunting.  Summer  arrived,  and 
dogs  and  men  packed  on  their  backs,  rafted 
across  blue  mountain  lakes,  and  descended  of 
ascended  unknown  rivers  in  slender  boats 
whipsawed  from  the  standing  forest. 

The  months  came  and  went,  and  back  and 
forth  they  twisted  through  the  uncharted  vast- 


196        THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

ness,  where  no  men  were  and  yet  where  men 
had  been  if  the  Lost  Cabin  were  true.  They 
went  across  divides  in  summer  blizzards, 
shivered  under  the  midnight  sun  on  naked 
mountains  between  the  timber  line  and  the 
eternal  snows,  dropped  into  summer  valleys 
amid  swarming  gnats  and  flies,  and  in  the 
shadows  of  glaciers  picked  strawberries  and 
flowers  as  ripe  and  fair  as  any  the  Southland 
could  boast.  In  the  fall  of  the  year  they 
penetrated  a  weird  lake  country,  sad  and 
silent,  where  wild-fowl  had  been,  but  where 
then  there  was  no  life  nor  sign  of  life  — 
only  the  blowing  of  chill  winds,  the  forming 
of  ice  in  sheltered  places,  and  the  melancholy 
rippling  of  waves  on  lonely  beaches. 

And  through  another  winter  they  wandered 
on  the  obliterated  trails  of  men  who  had  gone 
before.  Once,  they  came  upon  a  path  blazed 
through  the  forest,  an  ancient  path,  and  the 
Lost  Cabin  seemed  very  near.  But  the  path 
began  nowhere  and  ended  nowhere,  and  it 
remained  mystery,  as  the  man  who  made  it 
and  the  reason  he  made  it  remained  mystery. 


THE   SOUNDING   OF  THE   CALL     197 

Another  time  they  chanced  upon  the  time- 
graven  wreckage  of  a  hunting  lodge,  and  amid 
the  shreds  of  rotted  blankets  John  Thornton 
found  a  long-barrelled  flint-lock.  He  knew 
it  for  a  Hudson  Bay  Company  gun  of  the 
young  days  in  the  Northwest,  when  such  a 
gun  was  worth  its  height  in  beaver  skins 
packed  flat.  And  that  was  all  —  no  hint  as  to 
the  man  who  in  an  early  day  had  reared  the 
lodge  and  left  the  gun  among  the  blankets. 

Spring  came  on  once  more,  and  at  the  end 
of  all  their  wandering  they  found,  not  the 
Lost  Cabin,  but  a  shallow  placer  in  a  broad 
valley  where  the  gold  showed  like  yellow 
butter  across  the  bottom  of  the  washing-pan. 
They  sought  no  farther.  Each  day  they  worked 
earned  them  thousands  of  dollars  in  clean  dust 
and  nuggets,  and  they  worked  every  day. 
The  gold  was  sacked  in  moose-hide  bags,  fifty 
pounds  to  the  bag,  and  piled  like  so  much  fire- 
wood outside  the  spruce-bough  lodge.  Like 
giants  they  toiled,  days  flashing  on  the  heels 
of  days  like  dreams  as  they  heaped  the  treas- 
ure up. 


198        THE   CALL   OF   THE  WILD 

There  was  nothing  for  the  dogs  to  do, 
save  the  hauling  in  of  meat  now  and  again 
that  Thornton  killed,  and  Buck  spent  long 
hours  musing  by  the  fire.  The  vision  of  the 
short-legged  hairy  man  came  to  him  more 
frequently,  now  that  there  was  little  work  to 
be  done ;  and  often,  blinking  by  the  fire,  Buck 
wandered  with  him  in  that  other  world  which 
he  remembered. 

The  salient  thing  of  this  other  world  seemed 
fear.  When  he  watched  the  hairy  man  sleep- 
ing by  the  fire,  head  between  his  knees  and 
hands  clasped  above,  Buck  saw  that  he  slept 
restlessly,  with  many  starts  and  awakenings, 
at  which  times  he  would  peer  fearfully  into 
the  darkness  and  fling  m6re  wood  upon  the 
fire.  Did  they  walk  by  the  beach  of  a  sea, 
where  the  hairy  man  gathered  shell-fish  and 
ate  them  as  he  gathered,  it  was  with  eyes 
that  roved  everywhere  for  hidden  danger  and 
with  legs  prepared  to  run  like  the  wind  at 
its  first  appearance.  Through  the  forest  they 
crept  noiselessly,  Buck  at  the  hairy  man's 
heels;   and   they  were  alert  and  vigilant,  the 


THE   SOUNDING   OF   THE    CALL     199 

pair  of  them,  ears  twitching  and  moving  and 
nostrils  quivering,  for  the  man  heard  and 
smelled  as  keenly  as  Buck.  The  hairy  man 
could  spring  up  into  the  trees  and  travel 
ahead  as  fast  as  on  the  ground,  swinging 
by  the  arms  from  limb  to  limb,  sometimes 
a  dozen  feet  apart,  letting  go  and  catching, 
never  falling,  never  missing  his  grip.  In  fact, 
he  seemed  as  much  at  home  among  the  trees 
as  on  the  ground;  and  Buck  had  memories 
of  nights  of  vigil  spent  beneath  trees  wherein 
the  hairy  man  roosted,  holding  on  tightly  as 
he  slept. 

And  closely  akin  to  the  visions  of  the  hairy 
man  was  the  call  still  sounding  in  the  depths 
of  the  forest.  It  filled  him  with  a  great  unrest 
and  strange  desires.  It  caused  him  to  feel 
a  vague,  sweet  gladness,  and  he  was  aware  of 
wild  yearnings  and  stirrings  for  he  knew  not 
what.  Sometimes  he  pursued  the  call  into 
the  forest,  looking  for  it  as  though  it  were 
a  tangible  thing,  barking  softly  or  defiantly, 
as  the  mood  might  dictate.  He  would  thrust 
his    nose   into    the   cool  wood   moss,  or   into 


200        THE   CALL   OF   THE  WILD 

the  black  soil  where  long  grasses  grew,  and 
snort  with  joy  at  the  fat  earth  smells  ;  or  he 
would  crouch  for  hours,  as  if  in  concealment, 
behind  fungus-covered  trunks  of  fallen  trees, 
wide-eyed  and  wide-eared  to  all  that  moved 
and  sounded  about  him.  It  might  be,  lying 
thus,  that  he  hoped  to  surprise  this  call  he 
could  not  understand.  But  he  did  not  know 
why  he  did  these  various  things.  He  was 
impelled  to  do  them,  and  did  not  reason  about 
them  at  all. 

Irresistible  impulses  seized  him.  He  would 
be  lying  in  camp,  dozing  lazily  in  the  heat 
of  the  day,  when  suddenly  his  head  would 
lift  and  his  ears  cock  up,  intent  and  listening, 
and  he  would  spring  to  his  feet  and  dash  away, 
and  on  and  on,  for  hours,  through  the  forest 
aisles  and  across  the  open  spaces  where  the 
niggerheads  bunched.  He  loved  to  run  down 
dry  watercourses,  and  to  creep  and  spy  upon 
the  bird  life  in  the  woods.  For  a  day  at  a 
time  he  would  lie  in  the  underbrush  where 
he  could  watch  the  partridges  drumming  and 
strutting   up    and   down.       But   especially  he 


THE   SOUNDING   OF  THE   CALL     201 

loved  to  run  in  the  dim  twilight  of  the  sum- 
mer midnights,  listening  to  the  subdued  and 
sleepy  murmurs  of  the  forest,  reading  signs 
and  sounds  as  man  may  read  a  book,  and 
seeking  for  the  mysterious  something  that 
called  —  called,  waking  or  sleeping,  at  all 
times,  for  him  to  come. 

One  night  he  sprang  from  sleep  with  a  start, 
eager-eyed,  nostrils  quivering  and  scenting,  his 
mane  bristling  in  recurrent  waves.  From  the 
forest  came  the  call  (or  one  note  of  it,  for  the 
call  was  many  noted),  distinct  and  definite  as 
never  before,  —  a  long-drawn  howl,  like,  yet 
unlike,  any  noise  made  by  husky  dog.  And 
he  knew  it,  in  the  old  familiar  way,  as  a  sound 
heard  before.  He  sprang  through  the  sleeping 
camp  and  in  swift  silence  dashed  through  the 
woods.  As  he  drew  closer  to  the  cry  he  went 
more  slowly,  with  caution  in  every  movement, 
till  he  came  to  an  open  place  among  the  trees, 
and  looking  out  saw,  erect  on  haunches,  with 
nose  pointed  to  the  sky,  a  long,  lean,  timber 
wolf. 

He  had  made  no  noise,  yet  it  ceased  from 


202        THE   CALL   OF  THE   WILD 

its  howling  and  tried  to  sense  his  presence. 
Buck  stalked  into  the  open,  half  crouching, 
body  gathered  compactly  together,  tail  straight 
and  stiff,  feet  falling  with  unwonted  care. 
Every  movement  advertised  commingled  threat- 
ening and  overture  of  friendliness.  It  was  the 
menacing  truce  that  marks  the  meeting  of  wild 
beasts  that  prey.  But  the  wolf  fled  at  sight 
of  him.  He  followed,  with  wild  leapings,  in  a 
frenzy  to  overtake.  He  ran  him  into  a  blind 
channel,  in  the  bed  of  the  creek,  where  a  tim- 
ber jam  barred  the  way.  The  wolf  whirled 
about,  pivoting  on  his  hind  legs  after  the  fash- 
ion of  Joe  and  of  all  cornered  husky  dogs, 
snarling  and  bristling,  clipping  his  teeth  to- 
gether in  a  continuous  and  rapid  succession 
of  snaps. 

Buck  did  not  attack,  but  circled  him  about 
and  hedged  him  in  with  friendly  advances. 
The  wolf  was  suspicious  and  afraid ;  for  Buck 
made  three  of  him  in  weight,  while  his  head 
barely  reached  Buck's  shoulder.  Watching 
his  chance,  he  darted  away,  and  the  chase  was 
resumed.     Time  and  again  he  was  cornered, 


THE   SOUNDING    OF   THE    CALL     203 

and  the  thing  repeated,  though  he  was  in  poor 
condition,  or  Buck  could  not  so  easily  have 
overtaken  him.  He  would  run  till  Buck's 
head  was  even  with  his  flank,  when  he  would 
whirl  around  at  bay,  only  to  dash  away  again 
at  the  first  opportunity. 


But  in  the  end  Buck's  pertinacity  was  re- 
warded ;  for  the  wolf,  finding  that  no  harm  was 
intended,  finally  sniffed  noses  with  him.  Then 
they  became  friendly,  and  played  about  in  the 
nervous,  half-coy  way  with  which  fierce  beasts 
belie  their  fierceness.  After  some  time  of  this 
the  wolf  started  off  at  an  easy  lope  in  a  manner 
that  plainly  showed  he  was  going  somewhere. 
He  made  it  clear  to  Buck  that  he  was  to  come, 


204    THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

and  they  ran  side  by  side  through  the  sombre 
twilight,  straight  up  the  creek  bed,  into  the 
gorge  from  which  it  issued,  and  across  the 
bleak  divide  where  it  took  its  rise. 

On  the  opposite  slope  of  the  watershed 
they  came  down  into  a  level  country  where 
were  great  stretches  of  forest  and  many 
streams,  and  through  these  great  stretches 
they  ran  steadily,  hour  after  hour,  the  sun 
rising  higher  and  the  day  growing  warmer. 
Buck  was  wildly  glad.  He  knew  he  was  at 
last  answering  the  call,  running  by  the  side  of 
his  wood  brother  toward  the  place  from  where 
the  call  surely  came.  Old  memories  were 
coming  upon  him  fast,  and  he  was  stirring  to 
them  as  of  old  he  stirred  to  the  realities  of 
which  they  were  the  shadows.  He  had  done 
this  thing  before,  somewhere  in  that  other  and 
dimly  remembered  world,  and  he  was  doing  it 
again,  now,  running  free  in  the  open,  the  un- 
packed earth  underfoot,  the  wide  sky  over- 
head. 

They  stopped  by  a  running  stream  to  drink, 
and,  stopping,  Buck  remembered  John  Thorn- 


THE   SOUNDING   OF  THE   CALL     205 

ton.  He  sat  down.  The  wolf  started  on 
toward  the  place  from  where  the  call  surely 
came,  then  returned  to  him,  sniffing  noses  and 
making  actions  as  though  to  encourage  him. 
But  Buck  turned  about  and  started  slowly  on 
the  back  track.  For  the  better  part  of  an 
hour  the  wild  brother  ran  by  his  side,  whining 
softly.  Then  he  sat  down,  pointed  his  nose 
upward,  and  howled.  It  was  a  mournful  howl, 
and  as  Buck  held  steadily  on  his  way  he  heard 
it  grow  faint  and  fainter  until  it  was  lost  in  the 
distance. 

John  Thornton  was  eating  dinner  when 
Buck  dashed  into  camp  and  sprang  upon  him 
in  a  frenzy  of  affection,  overturning  him, 
scrambling  upon  him,  licking  his  face,  biting 
his  hand  —  "playing  the  general  tom-fool,"  as 
John  Thornton  characterized  it,  the  while  he 
shook  Buck  back  and  forth  and  cursed  him 
lovingly. 

For  two  days  and  nights  Buck  never  left 
camp,  never  let  Thornton  out  of  his  sight. 
He  followed  him  about  at  his  work,  watched 
him  while  he  ate,  saw  him  into  his  blankets  at 


206        THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

night  and  out  of  them  in  the  morning.  But 
after  two  days  the  call  in  the  forest  began  to 
sound  more  imperiously  than  ever.  Buck's 
restlessness  came  back  on  him,  and  he  was 
haunted  by  recollections  of  the  wild  brother, 
and  of  the  smiling  land  beyond  the  divide  and 
the  run  side  by  side  through  the  wide  forest 
stretches.  Once  again  he  took  to  wandering 
in  the  woods,  but  the  wild  brother  came  no 
more ;  and  though  he  listened  through  long 
vigils,  the  mournful  howl  was  never  raised. 

He  began  to  sleep  out  at  night,  staying 
away  from  camp  for  days  at  a  time ;  and  once 
he  crossed  the  divide  at  the  head  of  the  creek 
and  went  down  into  the  land  of  timber  and 
streams.  There  he  wandered  for  a  week, 
seeking  vainly  for  fresh  sign  of  the  wild 
brother,  killing  his  meat  as  he  travelled  and 
travelling  with  the  long,  easy  lope  that  seems 
never  to  tire.  He  fished  for  salmon  in  a 
broad  stream  that  emptied  somewhere  into  the 
sea,  and  by  this  stream  he  killed  a  large  black 
bear,  blinded  by  the  mosquitoes  while  likewise 
fishing,  and  raging  through  the  forest  helpless 


THE   SOUNDING   OF   THE   CALL     207 

and  terrible.  Even  so,  it  was  a  hard  fight,  and 
it  aroused  the  last  latent  remnants  of  Buck's 
ferocity.  And  two  days  later,  when  he  re- 
turned to  his  kill  and  found  a  dozen  wolver- 
enes quarrelling  over  the  spoil,  he  scattered 
them  like  chaff;  and  those  that  fled  left  two 
behind  who  would  quarrel  no  more. 

The  blood-longing  became  stronger  than 
ever  before.  He  was  a  killer,  a  thing  that 
preyed,  living  on  the  things  that  lived,  un- 
aided, alone,  by  virtue  of  his  own  strength  and 
prowess,  surviving  triumphantly  in  a  hostile 
environment  where  only  the  strong  survived. 
Because  of  all  this  he  became  possessed  of  a 
great  pride  in  himself,  which  communicated 
itself  like  a  contagion  to  his  physical  being. 
It  advertised  itself  in  all  his  movements,  was 
apparent  in  the  play  of  every  muscle,  spoke 
plainly  as  speech  in  the  way  he  carried  himself, 
and  made  his  glorious  furry  coat  if  anything 
more  glorious.  But  for  the  stray  brown  on  his 
muzzle  and  above  his  eyes,  and  for  the  splash 
of  white  hair  that  ran  midmost  down  his  chest, 
he  might  well  have  been  mistaken  for  a  gigan- 


208        THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

tic  wolf,  larger  than  the  largest  of  the  breed. 
From  his  St.  Bernard  father  he  had  inherited 
size  and  weight,  but  it  was  his  shepherd 
mother  who  had  given  shape  to  that  size  and 
weight.  His  muzzle  was  the  long  wolf  muzzle, 
save  that  it  was  larger  than  the  muzzle  of  any 
wolf;  and  his  head,  somewhat  broader,  was 
the  wolf  head  on  a  massive  scale. 

His  cunning  was  wolf  cunning,  and  wild 
cunning ;  his  intelligence,  shepherd  intelligence 
and  St.  Bernard  intelligence ;  and  all  this,  plus 
an  experience  gained  in  the  fiercest  of  schools, 
made  him  as  formidable  a  creature  as  any  that 
roamed  the  wild.  A  carnivorous  animal,  liv- 
ing on  a  straight  meat  diet,  he  was  in  full 
flower,  at  the  high  tide  of  his  life,  overspilling 
with  vigor  and  virility.  When  Thornton 
passed  a  caressing  hand  along  his  back,  a  snap- 
ping and  crackling  followed  the  hand,  each 
hair  discharging  its  pent  magnetism  at  the  con- 
tact. Every  part,  brain  and  body,  nerve  tis- 
sue and  fibre,  was  keyed  to  the  most  exquisite 
pitch  ;  and  between  all  the  parts  there  was  a 
perfect  equilibrium  or  adjustment.     To  sights 


THE   SOUNDING   OF   THE   CALL     209 

and  sounds  and  events  which  required  action, 
he  responded  with  lightning-like  rapidity. 
Quickly  as  a  husky  dog  could  leap  to  defend 
from  attack  or  to  attack,  he  could  leap  twice  as 
quickly.  He  saw  the  movement,  or  heard 
sound,  and  responded  in  less  time  than  an- 
other dog  required  to  compass  the  mere  seeing 
or  hearing.  He  perceived  and  determined 
and  responded  in  the  same  instant.  In  point 
of  fact  the  three  actions  of  perceiving,  deter- 
mining, and  responding  were  sequential ;  but 
so  infinitesimal  were  the  intervals  of  time  be- 
tween them  that  they  appeared  simultaneous. 
His  muscles  were  surcharged  with  vitality,  and 
snapped  into  play  sharply,  like  steel  springs. 
Life  streamed  through  him  in  splendid  flood, 
glad  and  rampant,  until  it  seemed  that  it 
would  burst  him  asunder  in  sheer  ecstasy  and 
pour  forth  generously  over  the  world. 

"  Never  was  there  such  a  dog,"  said  John 
Thornton  one  day,  as  the  partners  watched 
Buck  marching  out  of  camp. 

"  When  he  was  made,  the  mould  was  broke," 
said  Pete. 


2io   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

"  Py  jingo !  I  t'ink  so  mineself,"  Hans 
affirmed. 

They  saw  him  marching  out  of  camp,  but 
they  did  not  see  the  instant  and  terrible  trans- 
formation which  took  place  as  soon  as  he  was 
within  the  secrecy  of  the  forest.  He  no  longer 
marched.  At  once  he  became  a  thing  of  the 
wild,  stealing  along  softly,  cat-footed,  a  pass- 
ing shadow  that  appeared  and  disappeared 
among  the  shadows.  He  knew  how  to  take 
advantage  of  every  cover,  to  crawl  on  his 
belly  like  a  snake,  and  like  a  snake  to  leap 
and  strike.  He  could  take  a  ptarmigan  from 
its  nest,  kill  a  rabbit  as  it  slept,  and  snap  in 
mid  air  the  little  chipmunks  fleeing  a  second 
too  late  for  the  trees.  Fish,  in  open  pools, 
were  not  too  quick  for  him  ;  nor  were  beaver, 
mending  their  dams,  too  wary.  He  killed 
to  eat,  not  from  wantonness ;  but  he  preferred 
to  eat  what  he  killed  himself.  So  a  lurking 
humor  ran  through  his  deeds,  and  it  was  his 
delight  to  steal  upon  the  squirrels,  and,  when 
he  all  but  had  them,  to  let  them  go,  chattering 
in  mortal  fear  to  the  tree-tops. 


THE   SOUNDING   OF   THE   CALL     211 

As  the  fall  of  the  year  came  on,  the  moose 
appeared  in  greater  abundance,  moving  slowly 
down  to  meet  the  winter  in  the  lower  and  less 
rigorous  valleys.  Buck  had  already  dragged 
down  a  stray  part-grown  calf;  but  he  wished 
strongly  for  larger  and  more  formidable  quarry, 
and  he  came  upon  it  one  day  on  the  divide 
at  the  head  of  the  creek.  A  band  of  twenty 
moose  had  crossed  over  from  the  land  of 
streams  and  timber,  and  chief  among  them  was 
a  great  bull.  He  was  in  a  savage  temper, 
and,  standing  over  six  feet  from  the  ground, 
was  as  formidable  an  antagonist  as  even  Buck 
could  desire.  Back  and  forth  the  bull  tossed 
his  great  palmated  antlers,  branching  to  four- 
teen points  and  embracing  seven  feet  within 
the  tips.  His  small  eyes  burned  with  a  vicious 
and  bitter  light,  while  he  roared  with  fury  at 
sight  of  Buck. 

From  the  bull's  side,  just  forward  of  the 
flank,  protruded  a  feathered  arrow-end,  which 
accounted  for  his  savageness.  Guided  by  that 
instinct  which  came  from  the  old  hunting  days 
of  the  primordial  world,  Buck   proceeded   to 


212   THE  CALL  OF  THE  WILD 

cut  the  bull  out  from  the  herd.  It  was  no 
slight  task.  He  would  bark  and  dance  about 
in  front  of  the  bull,  just  out  of  reach  of  the 
great  antlers  and  of  the  terrible  splay  hoofs 
which  could  have  stamped  his  life  out  with  a 
single  blow.  Unable  to  turn  his  back  on  the 
fanged  danger  and  go  on,  the  bull  would  be 
driven  into  paroxysms  of  rage.  At  such 
moments  he  charged  Buck,  who  retreated 
craftily,  luring  him  on  by  a  simulated  inability 
to  escape.  But  when  he  was  thus  sepa- 
rated from  his  fellows,  two  or  three  of  the 
younger  bulls  would  charge  back  upon  Buck 
and  enable  the  wounded  bull  to  rejoin  the 
herd. 

There  is  a  patience  of  the  wild  —  dogged, 
tireless,  persistent  as  life  itself —  that  holds 
motionless  for  endless  hours  the  spider  in  its 
web,  the  snake  in  its  coils,  the  panther  in  its 
ambuscade ;  this  patience  belongs  peculiarly 
to  life  when  it  hunts  its  living  food;  and  it 
belonged  to  Buck  as  he  clung  to  the  flank 
of  the  herd,  retarding  its  march,  irritating  the 
young    bulls,   worrying    the   cows   with   their 


THE   SOUNDING   OF   THE   CALL     213 

half-grown  calves,  and  driving  the  wounded 
bull  mad  with  helpless  rage.  For  half  a  day 
this  continued.  Buck  multiplied  himself, 
attacking  from  all  sides,  enveloping  the  herd 
in  a  whirlwind  of  menace,  cutting  out  his 
victim  as  fast  as  it  could  rejoin  its  mates, 
wearing  out  the  patience  of  creatures  preyed 
upon,  which  is  a  lesser  patience  than  that  of 
creatures  preying. 

As  the  day  wore  along  and  the  sun  dropped 
to  its  bed  in  the  northwest  (the  darkness  had 
come  back  and  the  fall  nights  were  six  hours 
long),  the  young  bulls  retraced  their  steps 
more  and  more  reluctantly  to  the  aid  of  their 
beset  leader.  The  down-coming  winter  was 
harrying  them  on  to  the  lower  levels,  and  it 
seemed  they  could  never  shake  off  this  tireless 
creature  that  held  them  back.  Besides,  it 
was  not  the  life  of  the  herd,  or  of  the  young 
bulls,  that  was  threatened.  The  life  of  only 
one  member  was  demanded,  which  was  a  re- 
moter interest  than  their  lives,  and  in  the  end 
they  were  content  to  pay  the  toll. 

As   twilight   fell    the   old   bull   stood   with 


214        THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

lowered  head,  watching  his  mates  —  the  cows 
he  had  known,  the  calves  he  had  fathered,  the 
bulls  he  had  mastered  —  as  they  shambled  on 
at  a  rapid  pace  through  the  fading  light.  He 
could  not  follow,  for  before  his  nose  leaped  the 
merciless  fanged  terror  that  would  not  let  him 
go.  Three  hundredweight  more  than  half  a  ton 
he  weighed ;  he  had  lived  a  long,  strong  life, 
full  of  fight  and  struggle,  and  at  the  end  he 
faced  death  at  the  teeth  of  a  creature  whose  head 
did  not  reach  beyond  his  great  knuckled  knees. 
From  then  on,  night  and  day,  Buck  never 
left  his  prey,  never  gave  it  a  moment's  rest, 
never  permitted  it  to  browse  the  leaves  of  trees 
or  the  shoots  of  young  birch  and  willow.  Nor 
did  he  give  the  wounded  bull  opportunity  to 
slake  his  burning  thirst  in  the  slender  trickling 
streams  they  crossed.  Often,  in  desperation, 
he  burst  into  long  stretches  of  flight.  At  such 
times  Buck  did  not  attempt  to  stay  him,  but 
loped  easily  at  his  heels,  satisfied  with  the  way 
the  game  was  played,  lying  down  when  the 
moose  stood  still,  attacking  him  fiercely  when 
he  strove  to  eat  or  drink. 


"Lying  down  when  the  moose  stood  still." 


THE   SOUNDING   OF   THE   CALL     217 

The  great  head  drooped  more  and  more 
under  its  tree  of  horns,  and  the  shambling  trot 
grew  weak  and  weaker.  He  took  to  stand- 
ing for  long  periods,  with  nose  to  the  ground 
and  dejected  ears  dropped  limply  ;  and  Buck 
found  more  time  in  which  to  get  water  for 
himself  and  in  which  to  rest.  At  such  mo- 
ments, panting  with  red  lolling  tongue  and 
with  eyes  fixed  upon  the  big  bull,  it  appeared 
to  Buck  that  a  change  was  coming  over  the 
face  of  things.  He  could  feel  a  new  stir  in 
the  land.  As  the  moose  were  coming  into 
the  land,  other  kinds  of  life  were  coming  in. 
Forest  and  stream  and  air  seemed  palpitant 
with  their  presence.  The  news  of  it  was  borne 
in  upon  him,  not  by  sight,  or  sound,  or  smell, 
but  by  some  other  and  subtler  sense.  He 
heard  nothing,  saw  nothing,  yet  knew  that  the 
land  was  somehow  different;  that  through  it 
strange  things  were  afoot  and  ranging ;  and  he 
resolved  to  investigate  after  he  had  finished  the 
business  in  hand. 

At  last,  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  day,  he 
pulled  the  great  moose  down.     For  a  day  and 


2i 8        THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

a  night  he  remained  by  the  kill,  eating  and 
sleeping,  turn  and  turn  about.  Then,  rested, 
refreshed  and  strong,  he  turned  his  face  toward 
camp  and  John  Thornton.  He  broke  into 
the  long  easy  lope,  and  went  on,  hour  after 
hour,  never  at  loss  for  the  tangled  way,  head- 
ing straight  home  through  strange  country 
with  a  certitude  of  direction  that  put  man  and 
his  magnetic  needle  to  shame. 

As  he  held  on  he  became  more  and  more 
conscious  of  the  new  stir  in  the  land.  There 
was  life  abroad  in  it  different  from  the  life 
which  had  been  there  throughout  the  summer. 
No  longer  was  this  fact  borne  in  upon  him 
in  some  subtle,  mysterious  way.  The  birds 
talked  of  it,  the  squirrels  chattered  about  it, 
the  very  breeze  whispered  of  it.  Several  times 
he  stopped  and  drew  in  the  fresh  morning  air 
in  great  sniffs,  reading  a  message  which  made 
him  leap  on  with  greater  speed.  He  was 
oppressed  with  a  sense  of  calamity  happening, 
if  it  were  not  calamity  already  happened ;  and 
as  he  crossed  the  last  watershed  and  dropped 
down  into  the  valley  toward  ca*mp,  he  proceeded 
with  greater  caution. 


THE   SOUNDING   OF  THE   CALL     219 

Three  miles  away  he  came  upon  a  fresh 
trail  that  sent  his  neck  hair  rippling  and  bris- 
tling. It  led  straight  toward  camp  and  John 
Thornton.  Buck  hurried  on,  swiftly  and 
stealthily,  every  nerve  straining  and  tense, 
alert  to  the  multitudinous  details  which  told  a 
story  —  all  but  the  end.  His  nose  gave  him 
a  varying  description  of  the  passage  of  the  life 
on  the  heels  of  which  he  was  travelling.  He 
remarked  the  pregnant  silence  of  the  forest. 
The  bird  life  had  flitted.  The  squirrels  were 
in  hiding.  One  only  he  saw,  —  a  sleek  gray 
fellow,  flattened  against  a  gray  dead  limb  so 
that  he  seemed  a  part  of  it,  a  woody  excres- 
cence upon  the  wood  itself. 

As  Buck  slid  along  with  the  obscureness 
of  a  gliding  shadow,  his  nose  was  jerked 
suddenly  to  the  side  as  though  a  positive 
force  had  gripped  and  pulled  it.  He  followed 
the  new  scent  into  a  thicket  and  found  Nig. 
He  was  lying  on  his  side,  dead  where  he  had 
dragged  himself,  an  arrow  protruding,  head 
and  feathers,  from  either  side  of  his  body. 

A   hundred  yards   farther   on,    Buck   came 


220        THE   CALL   OF   THE  WILD 

upon  one  of  the  sled-dogs  Thornton  had 
bought  in  Dawson.  This  dog  was  thrashing 
about  in  a  death-struggle,  directly  on  the  trail, 
and  Buck  passed  around  him  without  stopping. 
From  the  camp  came  the  faint  sound  of  many 
voices,  rising  and  falling  in  a  sing-song  chant. 
Bellying  forward  to  the  edge  of  the  clearing, 
he  found  Hans,  lying  on  his  face,  feathered 
with  arrows  like  a  porcupine.  At  the  same 
instant  Buck  peered  out  where  the  spruce- 
bough  lodge  had  been  and  saw  what  made 
his  hair  leap  straight  up  on  his  neck  and 
shoulders.  A  gust  of  overpowering  rage 
swept  over  him.  He  did  not  know  that  he 
growled,  but  he  growled  aloud  with  a  terrible 
ferocity.  For  the  last  time  in  his  life  he 
allowed  passion  to  usurp  cunning  and  reason, 
and  it  was  because  of  his  great  love  for  John 
Thornton  that  he  lost  his  head. 

The  Yeehats  were  dancing  about  the  wreck- 
age of  the  spruce-bough  lodge  when  they 
heard  a  fearful  roaring  and  saw  rushing  upon 
them  an  animal  the  like  of  which  they  had 
never  seen  before.     It  was  Buck,  a  live  hurri- 


THE   SOUNDING   OF   THE   CALL     221 

cane  of  fury,  hurling  himself  upon  them  in 
a  frenzy  to  destroy.  He  sprang  at  the  fore- 
most man  (it  was  the  chief  of  the  Yeehats), 
ripping  the  throat  wide  open  till  the  rent 
jugular  spouted  a  fountain  of  blood.  He  did 
not  pause  to  worry  the  victim,  but  ripped  in 
passing,  with  the  next  bound  tearing  wide 
the  throat  of  a  second  man.  There  was  no 
withstanding  him.  He  plunged  about  in  their 
very  midst,  tearing,  rending,  destroying,  in 
constant  and  terrific  motion  which  defied  the 
arrows  they  discharged  at  him.  In  fact,  so 
inconceivably  rapid  were  his  movements,  and 
so  closely  were  the  Indians  tangled  together, 
that  they  shot  one  another  with  the  arrows ; 
and  one  young  hunter,  hurling  a  spear  at 
Buck  in  mid  air,  drove  it  through  the  chest 
of  another  hunter  with  such  force  that  the 
point  broke  through  the  skin  of  the  back 
and  stood  out  beyond.  Then  a  panic  seized 
the  Yeehats,  and  they  fled  in  terror  to  the 
woods,  proclaiming  as  they  fled  the  advent 
of  the  Evil  Spirit. 

And  truly   Buck  was  the   Fiend  incarnate, 


222        THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

raging  at  their  heels  and  dragging  them  down 
like  deer  as  they  raced  through  the  trees.  It 
was  a  fateful  day  for  the  Yeehats.  They 
scattered  far  and  wide  over  the  country,  and 
it  was  not  till  a  week  later  that  the  last  of 
the  survivors  gathered  together  in  a  lower 
valley  and  counted  their  losses.  As  for  Buck, 
wearying  of  the  pursuit,  he  returned  to  the 
desolated  camp.  He  found  Pete  where  he 
had  been  killed  in  his  blankets  in  the  first 
moment  of  surprise.  Thornton's  desperate 
struggle  was  fresh-written  on  the  earth,  and 
Buck  scented  every  detail  of  it  down  to  the 
edge  of  a  deep  pool.  By  the  edge,  head  and 
fore  feet  in  the  water,  lay  Skeet,  faithful  to 
the  last.  The  pool  itself,  muddy  and  dis- 
colored from  the  sluice  boxes,  effectually  hid 
what  it  contained,  and  it  contained  John 
Thornton ;  for  Buck  followed  his  trace  into 
the  water,  from  which  no  trace  led  away. 

All  day  Buck  brooded  by  the  pool  or  roamed 
restlessly  about  the  camp.  Death,  as  a  ces- 
sation of  movement,  as  a  passing  out  and 
away  from  the  lives  of  the  living,  he  knew, 


THE   SOUNDING   OF   THE   CALL     223 

and  he  knew  John  Thornton  was  dead.  It 
left  a  great  void  in  him,  somewhat  akin  to 
hunger,  but  a  void  which  ached  and  ached, 
and  which  food  could  not  fill.  At  times, 
when  he  paused  to  contemplate  the  carcasses 
of  the  Yeehats,  he  forgot  the  pain  of  it ;  and 
at  such  times  he  was  aware  of  a  great  pride 
in  himself,  —  a  pride  greater  than  any  he  had 
yet  experienced.  He  had  killed  man,  the 
noblest  game  of  all,  and  he  had  killed  in  the 
face  of  the  law  of  club  and  fang.  He  sniffed 
the  bodies  curiously.  They  had  died  so 
easily.  It  was  harder  to  kill  a  husky  dog 
than  them.  They  were  no  match  at  all, 
were  it  not  for  their  arrows  and  spears  and 
clubs.  Thenceforward  he  would  be  unafraid 
of  them  except  when  they  bore  in  their  hands 
their  arrows,  spears,  and  clubs. 

Night  came  on,  and  a  full  moon  rose  high 
over  the  trees  into  the  sky,  lighting  the  land 
till  it  lay  bathed  in  ghostly  day.  And  with 
the  coming  of  the  night,  brooding  and  mourn- 
ing by  the  pool,  Buck  became  alive  to  a 
stirring   of  the   new  life   in  the  forest   other 


224       THE   CALL   OF   THE   WILD 

than  that  which  the  Yeehats  had  made.  He 
stood  up,  listening  and  scenting.  From  far 
away  drifted  a  faint,  sharp  yelp,  followed  by 
a  chorus  of  similar  sharp  yelps.  As  the 
moments  passed  the  yelps  grew  closer  and 
louder.  Again  Buck  knew  them  as  things 
heard  in  that  other  world  which  persisted  in 
his  memory.  He  walked  to  the  centre  of 
the  open  space  and  listened.  It  was  the  call, 
the  many-noted  call,  sounding  more  luringly 
and  compellingly  than  ever  before.  And  as 
never  before,  he  was  ready  to  obey.  John 
Thornton  was  dead.  The  last  tie  was  broken. 
Man  and  the  claims  of  man  no  longer  bound 
him. 

Hunting  their  living  meat,  as  the  Yeehats 
were  hunting  it,  on  the  flanks  of  the  migrat- 
ing moose,  the  wolf  pack  had  at  last  crossed 
over  from  the  land  of  streams  and  timber  and 
invaded  Buck's  valley.  Into  the  clearing 
where  the  moonlight  streamed,  they  poured 
in  a  silvery  flood ;  and  in  the  centre  of  the 
clearing  stood  Buck,  motionless  as  a  statue, 
waiting   their   coming.     They   were   awed,  so 


THE   SOUNDING   OF  THE   CALL     225 

still  and  large  he  stood,  and  a  moment's 
pause  fell,  till  the  boldest  one  leaped  straight 
for  him.  Like  a  flash  Buck  struck,  break- 
ing the  neck.  Then  he  stood,  without  move- 
ment, as  before,  the  stricken  wolf  rolling  in 
agony  behind  him.  Three  others  tried  it  in 
sharp  succession ;  and  one  after  the  other 
they  drew  back,  streaming  blood  from  slashed 
throats  or  shoulders. 

This  was  sufficient  to  fling  the  whole  pack 
forward,  pell-mell,  crowded  together,  blocked 
and  confused  by  its  eagerness  to  pull  down 
the  prey.  Buck's  marvellous  quickness  and 
agility  stood  him  in  good  stead.  Pivoting 
on  his  hind  legs,  and  snapping  and  gashing, 
he  was  everywhere  at  once,  presenting  a  front 
which  was  apparently  unbroken  so  swiftly 
did  he  whirl  and  guard  from  side  to  side. 
But  to  prevent  them  from  getting  behind  him, 
he  was  forced  back,  down  past  the  pool  and 
into  the  creek  bed,  till  he  brought  up  against 
a  high  gravel  bank.  He  worked  along  to 
a  right  angle  in  the  bank  which  the  men  had 
made  in  the   course   of  mining,   and   in   this 


226        THE   CALL   OF  THE  WILD 

angle  he  came  to  bay,  protected  on  three  sides 
and  with  nothing  to  do  but  face  the  front. 

And  so  well  did  he  face  it,  that  at  the 
end  of  half  an  hour  the  wolves  drew  back 
discomfited.  The  tongues  of  all  were  out 
and  lolling,  the  white  fangs  showing  cruelly 
white  in  the  moonlight.  Some  were  lying 
down  with  heads  raised  and  ears  pricked  for- 
ward; others  stood  on  their  feet,  watching 
him ;  and  still  others  were  lapping  water  from 
the  pool.  One  wolf,  long  and  lean  and 
gray,  advanced  cautiously,  in  a  friendly  man- 
ner, and  Buck  recognized  the  wild  brother 
with  whom  he  had  run  for  a  night  and  a 
day.  He  was  whining  softly,  and,  as  Buck 
whined,  they  touched  noses. 

Then  an  old  wolf,  gaunt  and  battle-scarred, 
came  forward.  Buck  writhed  his  lips  into 
the  preliminary  of  a  snarl,  but  sniffed  noses 
with  him.  Whereupon  the  old  wolf  sat 
down,  pointed  nose  at  the  moon,  and  broke 
out  the  long  wolf  howl.  The  others  sat 
down  and  howled.  And  now  the  call  came 
to   Buck  in  unmistakable  accents.     He,  too, 


THE   SOUNDING   OF   THE   CALL     227 

sat  down  and  howled.  This  over,  he  came 
out  of  his  angle  and  the  pack  crowded  around 
him,  sniffing  in  half-friendly,  half-savage  man- 
ner. The  leaders  lifted  the  yelp  of  the 
pack  and  sprang  away  into  the  woods.  The 
wolves  swung  in  behind,  yelping  in  chorus. 
And  Buck  ran  with  them,  side  by  side  with 
the  wild  brother,  yelping  as  he  ran. 

And  here  may  well  end  the  story  of  Buck. 
The  years  were  not  many  when  the  Yeehats 
noted  a  change  in  the  breed  of  timber  wolves ; 
for  some  were  seen  with  splashes  of  brown 
on  head  and  muzzle,  and  with  a  rift  of  white 
centring  down  the  chest.  But  more  re- 
markable than  this,  the  Yeehats  tell  of  a 
Ghost  Dog  that  runs  at  the  head  of  the  pack. 
They  are  afraid  of  this  Ghost  Dog,  for  it  has 
cunning  greater  than  they,  stealing  from  their 
camps  in  fierce  winters,  robbing  their  traps, 
slaying  their  dogs,  and  defying  their  bravest 
hunters. 

Nay,  the  tale  grows  worse.  Hunters  there 
are  who  fail  to  return  to  the  camp,  and  hunters 


228        THE   CALL   OF   THE  WILD 

there  have  been  whom  their  tribesmen  found 
with  throats  slashed  cruelly  open  and  with 
wolf  prints  about  them  in  the  snow  greater 
than  the  prints  of  any  wolf.  Each  fall,  when 
the  Yeehats  follow  the  movement  of  the 
moose,  there  is  a  certain  valley  which  they 
never  enter.  And  women  there  are  who  be- 
come sad  when  the  word  goes  over  the  fire 
of  how  the  Evil  Spirit  came  to  select  that 
valley  for  an  abiding-place. 

In  the  summers  there  is  one  visitor,  how- 
ever, to  that  valley,  of  which  the  Yeehats  do 
not  know.  It  is  a  great,  gloriously  coated 
wolf,  like,  and  yet  unlike,  all  other  wolves. 
He  crosses  alone  from  the  smiling  timber  land 
and  comes  down  into  an  open  space  among  the 
trees.  Here  a  yellow  stream  flows  from  rotted 
moose-hide  sacks  and  sinks  into  the  ground, 
with  long  grasses  growing  through  it  and  vege- 
table mould  overrunning  it  and  hiding  its  yellow 
from  the  sun;  and  here  he  muses  for  a  time,  howl- 
ing once,  long  and  mournfully,  ere  he  departs. 

But  he  is  not  always  alone.  When  the  long 
winter  nights  come  on  and  the  wolves  follow 


In  the  summers  there  is  one  visitor  ...  to  that  valley, 
...  a  great,  gloriously  coated  wolf." 


THE   SOUNDING   OF   THE   CALL     231 


their  meat  into  the  lower  valleys,  he  may  be 
seen  running  at  the  head  of  the  pack  through 
the  pale  moonlight  or  glimmering  borealis,  leap- 
ing gigantic  above  his  fellows,  his  great  throat 
a-bellow  as  he  sings  a  song  of  the  younger 
world,  which  is  the  song  of  the  pack. 


W0m 


mat 


FINIvJ 


THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  FROST 

By  JACK  LONDON 

Author  of  "  The  Son  of  the  Wolf"  "  The  God  of  his  Fathers,"  etc. 

With  Illustrations  by  Raphael  M.  Reay 
Cloth    i2tno    $1.50 


"  Told  with  something  of  that  same  vigorous  and  honest  manli- 
ness and  indifference  with  which  Mr.  Kipling  makes  unbegging 
yet  direct  and  unfailing  appeal  to  the  sympathy  of  his  reader."  — 
Richmond  Dispatch. 

"  Mr.  London  is  a  growing  literary  force.  He  is  to  be  reckoned 
among  the  strongest  of  our  young  writers,  if  not  the  strongest."  — 
Denver  Republican, 

"  So  powerfully  written,  and  so  totally  different  from  the  great 
mass  of  books."  —  Toledo  Daily  Blade. 

"  If  the  author  can  continue  to  work  on  the  high  level  which  he 
has  attained  in  this  book,  he  will  win  a  fame  both  wide  and  per- 
manent."—  Washington  Times. 

"  It  is  with  a  Kipling-like  pithiness  and  force  that  Mr.  Jack 
London  tells,  in  this  volume  of  short  stories,  the  story  of  the 
Indians  of  the  far  Northwest."  —  The  Critic. 

"  Graphic,  fascinating,  heart-breaking  in  intense  truth  to  life."  — 
San  Francisco  News-Letter, 


THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 
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A  GENTLEMAN  OF  THE  SOUTH 

A  memory  of  the  black  belt  from  the  manuscript 
memoirs  of  the  late  Colonel  Stanton  Elmore 

EDITED  WITHOUT  CHANGE 

By  WILLIAM  QARROTT  BROWN 
Illustrated   Cloth    i2mo   $1.50 


"  There  is  in  it  romance  of  an  unusual  charm,  unqualified  manli- 
ness, and  true  human  nature.  ...  It  stands  alone  in  strength  and 
beauty  and  truth  of  delineation." — Louisville  Courier-Journal. 

"  Mr.  Brown  has  made  a  distinct  and  valuable  addition  to  South- 
ern literature  in  this  capital  book,  which  is  more  than  well  worth 
reading."  —  Southern  Churchman. 


KOTTO 

Being  Japanese  curios,  with  sundry  cobwebs, 
collected  by 

LAFCADIO  HEARN 

Lecturer  on  English  Literature  in  the  Imperial  University 
of  Tokyo,  Japan 

With  Illustrations  by  Genjiro  Yeto 

Cloth    i2mo    $1.50  net 


"  The  Japanese  legends  are  put  into  English  with  exquisite  deli- 
cacy. They  can  have  lost  little  of  their  character  in  the  process. 
Some  of  them  are  grotesque,  some  beautiful,  some  surprisingly 
hideous,  but  they  all  bear  unmistakable  national  characteristics. 
His  own  work,  which  comprises  two-thirds  of  the  volume,  is  almost 
as  Japanese,  it  shows  so  fine  a  perception  of  their  point  of  view, 
such  a  rare  comprehension  of  Japanese  life  and  customs."  —  Chi- 
cago Tribune. 

THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

66  FIFTH   AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 

2 


. 


mW>ffi$i22& 


Deaddified 
-,   1989 


